I think this is a great idea and I hope that they pursue it and get it to the point where it’s a viable alternative to unnatural looking silicone breasts that seem to be so popular today.
At the October meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Dr. Khouri [Dr. Roger K. Khouri: plastic and reconstructive surgeon in charge of the Miami Breast Center] presented a long-term study that suggested liposuctioned fat was now a “viable alternative to breast implants.” It tracked 50 women, ages 17 to 63, for an average follow-up of 3.5 years. (For weeks, participants wore a cumbersome bra-like tissue expander at night that was created by Dr. Khouri to create a scaffolding for their fat.) The study, which Dr. Khouri plans to publish in a peer-reviewed journal, found that the procedure does not impede the reading of mammograms and that on average, 85 percent of transplanted fat survived to give patients natural-feeling larger breasts.
But the disadvantages cannot be discounted. It’s usually more expensive than implants, it takes a year to see how much fat survived, and breast volume can fluctuate with weight. Dr. Scott L. Spear, the chairman of the plastic surgery department at Georgetown University Hospital, has enlarged a patient’s breasts only to have the patient undo his handiwork by losing weight. “They decide to run a marathon and their breasts go away,” he said.