Can I Use My Own Fat for Breast Augmentation?

Many patients ask in jest if they can use their own fat for breast augmentation–”Couldn’t you just take my belly fat and put it up a little higher?” Although presently not a reality, this may indeed be a possibility in the future. Research is presently being done to test the possibility of using a person’s own fat-derived stem cells to help tissue and fat regenerate in another part of the body. The research is focused at this time on the hope that when these cells are injected back into the same patient, the cells will regenerate. This would be a ground-breaking development in a variety of situations such as post-mastectomy breast reconstruction and cosmetic breast augmentation where the patient’s own fat cells could be used to regenerate and reconstruct the breast tissue. Of course, this is only in the research stage at present and much experimentation and testing must be done to insure the safety of using these types of cells in humans. But as is often the case, it is plastic surgeons who are leading the way in this exciting field, and while much more work needs to be done on this theory, the early studies are most encouraging. Stay tuned for further developments!!