In the latest Aesthetic Surgery Journal January 2021 there was an article, “Blood Impairs Viability of Fat Grafts and Adipose Stem Cells: Importance of Washing in Fat Processing. “
This is a research paper.
Study:
- Blood and fat samples were obtained from 6 female patients.
- They compared: Fat mixed with normal saline VS. Fat mixed with various ratios of blood.
- The fat was implanted into nude mice.
- They looked at volume retention, histology, and immunochemical characteristics at 2 and 8 weeks.
- They also did in vitro experiments, where the stem cells were treated with blood at different concentrations and then evaluated.
Results?
Blood in the graft led to decrease in graft viability as evaluated by general observation and in the histology. The in vitro experiments showed less growth and fat creating.
They think fat should be washed to remove blood when processing the fat. They did this by putting the fat onto cotton pads.
My thoughts?
I like to centrifuge fat. There are many studies supporting this, and I love how it concentrates and makes the fat to be grafted uniform. It also helps separate out oil and fluid. When removing the fat during liposuction before processing it, sometimes the fat is super yellow with little visible blood and sometimes is it more pink. This study clearly shows we should prefer the yellow fat.