April 2015 issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Journal had a paper on one of my favorite topics: Fat grafting. “Antiaging Treatment of the Facial Skin by Fat Graft and Adipose Derived Stem Cells.”
Their question: When you use fat to help make the facial skin look better, why does it work? Is it the fat? The stem cells? Something else?
Study:
- 6 patients
- Fat was removed from the abdomen and injected in the area before the ear in patients who were later going to have facelifts.
- They did histology on this skin before fat was injected, and then again 3 months after the fat was injected.
- They looked at these samples under a microscope.
Results?
- Treatment with fat or stem cells improved the skin (ie they both work!)
- They saw
- decrease in the elastic breakdown
- increase in elastic fibers in papillary dermis
- a richer microvascular bed
- modified structure of the reticular dermis
So?
As many of you know, I am impressed by the skin improvement I see after doing fat transfer to the face. There is some kind of magic which occurs from moving the fat. I don’t know how long it lasts; I can’t predict its effect; I just know it happens. I love scientific studies such as this which look at histologic biopsies of the skin before and after fat grafting and can document the actual changes taking place. I look forward to more of these studies, particularly if they can figure out how to optimize the changes.
They conclude fat grafting is better than the isolated stem cells, because it give the same effect and it is cheaper, easier, and doesn’t have the regulatory issues of cell culturing.