Another journal article. Aesthetic Surgery Journal March 2016 had a comprehensive review on hDAM. The title is over the top (even I had a hard time with it), “Preparation, Characterization, and Clinical Implications of Human Decellularized Adipose Tissue Extracellular Matrix (hDAM): A Comprehensive Review.”
What is hDAM? It is “Human Decellularized Adipose Tissue Extracellular Matrix”.
How do you get it? It is the stuff we normally throw away. When we do tummy tucks, liposuction, breast reductions and the like, we have extra fat which we just throw away. Labs have started to collect this fat to do testing on it. They can remove the immunogenic cells in it- essentially making it sterile–and the thought is you could inject this instead. They are trying to find a new way to approach fat grafting, as fat retention rates are unpredictable, and we do not know the best way to harvest and process the fat. There are some who think we could inject something which will stimulate the body to MAKE fat in the new area.
Why look at it? Well there are 2 basic theories as to why fat transfer works: 1. The fat we transfer grows a new blood supply and lives. For this you need to harvest fat to transfer it. 2. In this theory, the fat we transfer dies, but it leaves a bunch of stromal and stem cells that recruit tissue to fill the space by new fat generation, new blood vessels, and fibrosis. hDAM is relying on the second idea- that stromal tissue can stimulate new fat and blood vessels.
This study looked at the different kinds of hDAM, as there is no consistent formula of it, to see what it is in it to cause fat to grow.
- In their research they looked at how it is processed (salt, enzyme, detergent) to remove the cells.
- Only the nondetergent methods maintain the components of the fat basement membrane, which seems important for hDAM to work.
Why do we care?
** IF THIS WORKS, hDAM has the potential of being an off the shelf filler to stimulate new fat and blood vessels with NO NEED TO HARVEST FAT. This would change fat transfer from a surgical procedure with swelling to an in office procedure.
Cool stuff.