The development of fat transplants

Human fat cells - Dr. med. Daniel Münch — Human fat cells

Human fat cells have a size of up to 0.2mm and have a lifespan of around 5 weeks.

Transplanting of body fat tissue has been experimented with since 1893. In the years that followed, the results ranged from outstanding to complete failure, in the worst cases to calcification and oily nodes. The recovery of fat was problematic for two reasons: first, it was problematic to obtain enough fat of good quality and second, the suctioned fat was often clumped.

In 2007, Colemann developed a method of fat transplant that was very inconvenient and time-consuming: fat was suctioned by hand with a small 5ml syringe, then centrifuged and spread over the tissue with a 1ml syringe. The quality of the mechanically suctioned and centrifuged fat of this method was insufficient, and in addition much too little fat could be processed with this technique. For all that, this operation lasted up to 6 hours.

History

First tried in 1893, transplant of autogenous fat was not an established technique until 2007. However, with all previously used methods, the fat cells had to be put through a centrifuge, which presents an additional risk of damaging the fat cells.