Water-jet assisted liposuction offers what many think is a viable option to conventional liposuction techniques. Until now, however, there have been no systematic, controlled studies to demonstrate its effect on fresh lipoaspirates.
With this in mind, a team of researchers from Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, set out to compare liposuction procedures with and without water-jet assistance in a blinded study.
The researchers — all plastic surgeons — obtained lipoaspirates from healthy females who volunteered to undergo body shaping treatment. At the beginning of surgery, the surgeons randomly performed conventional manual liposuction without water-jet assistance on one side to collect 50 mL lipoaspirate (group B). From the corresponding area of the other side, they used water-jet assisted liposuction to obtain another 50 mL lipoaspirate (group A). All harvested lipoaspirate was used in the in vitro and in vivo experiments to evaluate the effect of water-jet force on fresh lipoaspirate vitality and postoperative fat survival.
Analysis showed that the fresh lipoaspirate from group A had greater viability and a higher percentage of CD34+/CD45- cells compared with group B. Researchers also found that grafted lipoaspirate in group A had better weight retention, less apoptosis and greater angiogenesis.
“The fate of grafted lipoaspirates was affected by water-jet force,” the authors write. “With the assistance of water-jet force during harvesting procedure, we could obtain more viable lipoaspirates and gain better fat survival result."
The study was published ahead of print in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
