Air Date: Thursday, September 14, 2006
Fat grafting
An innovative procedure is using a woman's own body fat to augment and reshape her breasts. A technique called fat grafting is making it possible.
Linda Francipane wanted to get a breast augmentation, but didn't want traditional implants. After much research, she finally got an enlargement using her body's own fat.
"I'm more in proportion with my body, and I'm more confident," patient, Linda Francipane, said. "More confident with the way I look, carrying myself."
The technique, known as fat grafting, involves two procedures. First harvesting of the fat, using liposuction, and then placement of that fat into the breasts. Both are done the same day.
"I would primarily take fat from the love handles and waist, but also from the thighs and put it into the breast in a very meticulous slow fashion," plastic surgeon, Dr. Sydney Reese Coleman, said.
The grafting process of harvesting large amounts of fat and then placing it into the breasts takes approximately 5 to 8 hours.
"A breast implant is an isolated event, it's not integrated, it has the chance of getting scar around it and becoming obvious, this is completely integrated augmentation so I can place the fat any place in the breast I want to, it's completely fluid, it doesn't feel hard or feel different at all," Dr. Coleman said.
Fat grafting has also been used to fine-tune breast reconstructions and has helped disguise the edges or rippling of existing silicone gel and saline implants. Large studies have begun over the last few years to study fat grafting to the breasts. The procedure isn't cheap, it costs about $18,000.
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