Lipofilling, also known as fat injection, liposculpture, lipo injection

At Australia Plastic Surgery we use an advanced and refined technique, “structural micro fat grafting” which is a revolutionary technique that uses your own body fat as a natural, living filler to achieve precise structural alterations wherever it is placed. It is safe, adaptable and undetectable.

Structural microfat grafting lipofills and restores the fullness that is lost due to aging and to rejuvenate and enhance all areas of the face including the chin, nose, neck, jaw line, nasolabial folds, marionette lines, brow, upper eyelids, temples, lips, breasts, buttocks, and areas of the lower body.

Fat injection, or lipofilling, reduces wrinkles and creases and plumps up areas that have lost volume as a result of surgery, injury, aging or other causes. Transplanted fat that comes from the patient him- or herself does not carry a risk of allergic reaction or rejection. Other advantages include a short recovery time and usually long lasting results if it has been done properly.

Structural micro fat grafting can also be used to correct many other deformities such as hemifacial atrophy, cleft palette, and problems caused by liposuction. Fat grafting is now being used as an ancillary procedure to a facelift, brow lift, blepharoplasty, rhinoplasty, eyelid surgery, forehead lift, and breast augmentation.

Australia plastic surgery offers lipofilling using “structural microfat grafting technique” to the following area:

Face

The main reasons for adding structure to the face is to replace atrophied tissues and to enhance facial elements or proportion. The common goal of both of these indications is to create a more harmonious and aesthetically appealing proportion of the face.

As we age and lose the fullness of youth, your face literally gets smaller. The skin remains the same size, but without the underlying structure, your skin retreats into wrinkles. As the missing structure under the skin is restored with fat, the wrinkles will diminish.

Enhancing facial proportion

With aging, the cheeks chin, jaw, forehead, etc. decrease in size. The fat, muscle and connective tissues atrophy or waste away, leaving behind unsupported skin. As the support underlying the skin disappears, the skin falls into wrinkles and folds. As the cheek becomes smaller, bags under the eyes become more prominent. As the jaw line and chin loose their prominence, jowls appear. As the youthful fullness of the brow and upper eyelid dissipates, an empty sack of skin is left behind.

Since shrinkage of the subcutaneous tissues is the primary manifestation of aging, replacement of the atrophied tissue with “Structural Microfat grafting technique” is an obvious method of rejuvenation. Diffusely augmenting the structure of the forehead, cheeks, mouth, chin and jaw line restores the fullness of youth.

Traditional plastic surgery has identified the signs of aging - wrinkles, bags, jowls and folds. Most cosmetic surgeries have tried to remove these signs of aging. Unfortunately, they do not take into account how people looked when they are younger. Therefore, the end result of a facelift or eye tuck is that although the person may be tighter, they do not look like they did when they were young. With few exceptions, traditional plastic surgery revolves around a single solution to the challenges of augmentation and rejuvenation - cutting away fat, skin or muscle. Instead of tightening and shortening by excision of unsupported skin.

Dr. Barnouti pays particular attention to volumetric restoration of the face and body with living filler (your own fat), correcting asymmetry and restoring the fullness of youth, naturally and subtly. Removing wrinkles alone does not necessarily create the youth. Replacing fullness to a face restores youth.

Brow, Upper Eyelids & Temples

A definite fullness of the brow, upper eyelid, and the temple region is essential for a healthy and sensual appearance. Fullness characterizes the young brow, cheek, and temple. As the fullness of youth disappears, the structures underneath emerge. In the upper face, it is the shape of the skull and the rims around the eyes. The blood vessels are no longer hidden by fullness and become more visible. The muscles of facial expressions are more visible because the youthful fullness no longer impedes their intrinsic tone. This creates a frowning or scowling appearance in many older people. The eyebrow descends with loss of fullness from the forehead, temple, and brow. As fullness disappears from the upper eyelid and brow, their eyes may become more deep set and skeletal. In others, the lack of fullness results in an empty sac of skin hanging where the fullness once was present.

With “structural microfat grafting technique”, Australia Plastic Surgery is able to restore the brow, upper eyelids, and temples to more youthful and healthy proportions.

Chin and Jaw line

A sculpted, well contoured jaw line is the hallmark of a youthful appearance. Actors, models, and athletes are admired for their sharply defined jaw lines. It is the loss of the fullness in the jaw line and chins that heralds the first signs of aging. As the underlying fullness is reduced, the face deflates. The skin remains the same size, but without the underlying fullness and support, the emptied skin drapes around the underlying structures of the face. Structural micro fat grafting technique can play a significant role in reversing these aging changes.

Australia Plastic Surgery, through “structural microfat grafting technique”, can restructure the jaw line and chin to strengthen its appearance. We also restore fullness between the chin and the fat of the jowl, thereby changing facial proportion to project a more cleanly sculpted profile.

Nasolabial Folds / Marionette Grooves

The nasal labial folds and marionette grooves convey powerful emotions. Aging can generate negative and fixed changes in facial expression. As the face ages, it loses its fullness associated with youth. As the skin around the mouth loses its fullness, the unsupported skin sinks into fold, wrinkles, and creases. As these folds become more pronounced, unintentional emotional expressions can become fixed on the face.

With “structural microfat grafting technique”, Australia Plastic Surgery can soften the nasal labial folds back to a younger state. The key to the fat grafting to the naso-labial folds and marionette grooves is in the placement over an area to add support to the facial structures.

Cheek bones & Eyelids

Lipofilling using “Structural microfat grafting technique” to the cheek and lower eyelid can restore fullness, soften wrinkles and crow’s feet, decreases pore size and lighten lower eyelid darkness. A further indication for fat grafting to the cheeks is adjustment of facial proportions. This is most often seen in a younger person who desires more angular cheeks, but it can also be someone who has atrophy associated with acne scarring or aging. This technique can also be useful for disguising obvious silicone implants, minimizing the appearance of bulging eyes, correction of facial lypodystrophy and congenital deformities.

Lip Augmentation

The primary indications for lip augmentation are aging and a patient’s desire for an adjustment of facial proportion. As a person ages, the lips lose their fullness. The goal of lip augmentation is to create attractive, pouty lips. By using a “Structural microfat grafting technique”, we are able to increase the surface area of the lip. The changes that occur with the aging of the lower lip are dramatic. Along with the decrease in volume of the lower lip, wrinkling of the upper lip is almost always much worse. Restoring lip fullness through “structural micro fat grafting” will result in a return of a more youthful appearance. Australia Plastic Surgery follows a special technique that acknowledges that the lip has definite contours that must be respected and enhanced in order to produce aesthetically appealing changes in shape and volume.

Neck

A full, taunt neck is one of the signs of youth and beauty. With age subdermal fullness disappears and the skin texture gradually deteriorates, leaving behind unsupported, crepy skin. When structural fullness is added to the neck, it provides underlying support to the skin to restore a more youthful fullness. Recontouring of the neck with structural micro fat can provide further enhancement by disguising prominent neck cartilages.

Correction of Acne scaring

Aging and acne both erode the structures under the skin to leave behind an emptier sack of skin which is suitable to filling and restructuring with your own fat. The years of smouldering infections and abscesses associated with acne destroy the normal supporting elements under the skin. The resulting acne scarring of the skin is merely the "tip of the iceberg." The subcutaneous structures devastated by chronic acne must be restored to enact a healthy appearance to these ravaged faces. Acne scarring treated by only altering the skin is incompletely treated. Restructuring immediately under the skin restores texture to the skin. As important, replacing the volume of tissue loss in the forehead, cheeks, jaw line and chin due to chronic acne can restore a normal proportion of the face.

Body

Various body proportions can be enhanced by lipofilling. The grafted fat can be used to enhance your buttocks, define your abdomen, create your waist, improve your scar and many other clinical indications.

Hands

Hands are one of the most visible unclothed areas of the human body and also one of the first areas to show visible signs of aging. The back of the normal hand is not a repository of fat and the attractive young hand is full not fat. The key to the successful rejuvenation of the aging hand is to create an integrated layer of fat grafts over the back of the hand that makes the skin look and feel thicker with a slight youthful fullness. The back of an attractive, healthy appearing hand has a slight fullness that obscures veins and tendons but does not hide them.

Liposuction deformities

Liposuction is the most commonly performed plastic surgical procedure in the world. It can however sometimes produce superficial surface irregularities, what is known as iatrogenic liposuction deformities. the most common complication of liposuction. Some of these are exaggerations of pre-existing irregularities, some are cellulite, and some are newly created. The thigh and abdomen are particularly prone to these irregularities, and practitioners must be very meticulous with tissue handling to avoid such common complications. These body surface irregularities can be treated with Structural microfat grafting. They are challenging deformities and require a three-dimensional visualization of the problems and solutions.