During the past decade there has been increased awareness of the potential of free adipose cell grafting to treat a variety of problems in both reconstructive and cosmetic plastic surgery. There have been encouraging reports describing the use of autologous fat grafts (fat tissue harvested by standard liposuction techniques in a given patient and then re-injected at another site) for treating breast deformities in the setting of benign and previously treated malignant breast problems.
There has been a corresponding large scale laboratory investigation effort into the potential of adipose derived stem cells (ADSC's) harvested during liposuction and induced to differentiate into various cell types in the mesenchymal cell line. The potential clinical utility of these cells in the treatment of patients who present with a breast deformity after segmental mastectomy (lumpectomy) and radiation therapy has been described, but not studied in rigorous prospective manner.
The investigators believe that the clinical use of these autologous fat cell grafts have unique advantages in the treatment of breast deformities. The technique is minimally invasive, easily repeated and is associated with minimal surgical morbidity (indeed it may have the advantage of improving the appearance of both the breast deformity and the area from which they are harvested), it typically displays a rapid recovery, a complication rate that is no greater (and probably less than ) established and currently used surgical treatment(s) of these breast problems, and is oncologically safe.
