Microcannular liposuction is an important pillar of gentle treatments in the repertoire of New Cosmetic Surgery. It is used both for contouring the body silhouette as well as for the extraction of fat for the stem cell facelift, skin rejuvenation with stem cells, breast augmentation with stem cells or regenerative stem cell therapies. What however makes microcannular liposuction the King under the different methods of liposuction?
Manual microcannular liposuction – also called liposculpture – is the mildest form of liposuction! In my clinic it is performed without the use of mechanical suction with the help of manual vacuum syringes. The thereby used real microcannulas were partly developed by me. Real microcannulas have a diameter of 1.0 to 2.5 mm! They generally permit scar-free, tissue-friendly, and very thorough vacuuming with an excellent cosmetic result. This process is naturally, more complicated, and therefore more expensive than liposuction with thicker regular liposuction cannulas.
The method of microcannular liposuction was by the way decisively developed and propagated by the Californian dermatologist and internist Dr. Jeff Klein. His ground-breaking development of the tumescent anesthesia has revolutionized cosmetic surgery, by making cosmetic surgery possible under local anesthesia. This is a good example of how on the one hand, the cosmetic surgery is propagated by doctors of all disciplines and on the other hand shows how the invention of an internist has enriched entire surgery sector – functional surgery is today also very often conducted subject to the use of tumescent anesthesia.
Liposuction under local anesthesia has significant advantages over those conducted under general anesthesia: In addition to the much lower risk of local anesthesia for patients, the patients can have the suctioning away done either lying or else while standing. This allows a more accurate and better contouring of the treated body regions.
Microcannular liposuction is also convincing due to the particularly very simple follow-up of a few days of light compression. The reason for this: Due to the thin microcannulas, the body tissue is less injured than with regular liposuction cannulas. The small injection sites of liposuction heal quickly without scarring, which would be visible to the naked eye, compared to a liposuction with regular liposuction cannulas, whereby 4 to 8 weeks firmer compression are required. Due to the very gentle approach of the microcannular method, pain and swelling after liposuction is low.
Microcannulas are also excellent for the correction of irregularities and dimpling of the body contours, which were caused by accidents or suboptimal successful liposuction with thick cannulas. Due to their small diameter, thin microcannulas enable a precise body contouring; that would not be achieved with thicker regular liposuction cannulas.
In addition, microcannulas are also used to extract those small amounts of fat that serve as a source for stem cell derivation for regenerative stem cell therapies. In a future posting I will bring you closer to the amazing therapeutic potential of stem cells from autologous fat.
DDr. Heinrich, MD