In the field of plastic surgery, there have been continuous studies of the materials for reconstruction of defect and deficit of soft tissue and there has been studies for this purpose in transplantation of fat tissue which is considered to be the most favorite method.
To study histological changes of transplanted fat tissue, in 1990, Nguyen and Louis1 extracted fat tissue from rabbit by various methods using excision, aspiration and high powered suction, then inserted into soft tissue and histologically analyzed after a certain time period, but in case of a human being there have been no reports on differences of histological changes after using various methods of extraction for transplantation of fat tissue.
We studied 30 cases for 3 years before transplantation from 1998 to 2000, which held autotransplantation of fat tissue on depressed and folded area of face by three methods of fat extraction. After a certain period of time, if the patients wanted other surgical operation such as blepharoplasty, we obtained some of the fat tissues as the operation was held(7 cases). We analyzed differences with the tissue extracted before by light microscope.
In case of extraction of fat tissue by excision and aspiration, most cases had typical fat cells, the case using high powered suction method had atypical fat cells and many ruptured adipocyte. The method which give least injury to transplanted fat tissue is to use excision and aspiration method.
With the lapse of time after transplantation of fat tissue, histological changes showed that there were minimum adipocytes around fibrotic tissue and cystic cavity was seen in case of excision and aspiration method. In high powered suction, there were no adipocyte seen in transplanted fat tissue. This is strong proof contrast to cell survival theory. Our study confirmed the results with the animal experiment: in transplanting fat tissue by three type extraction methods,1 especially by high powered suction, extracted fat tissue was destroyed by negative pressure and living fat cells were decreased after transplantation. In order to extract fat tissue, the method using small negative pressure such as aspiration and excision is more convenient for a more careful and delicate operation.