A clinical trial in facial fat grafting: filtered and washed versus centrifuged fat.

BACKGROUND: Although the increasing trend is to rebuild facial soft-tissue volume with autologous fat transfer, there is no agreement concerning the best way of processing the harvested fat before reinjecting it. Among all the reported fat graft processing techniques, in the present study, the authors compared the clinical results obtained using simple filtered and washed fat with those achieved by means of pure centrifuged fat.

METHODS: A prospective double-blind study was conducted on 25 healthy patients undergoing facial fat transplantation from January of 2006 to June of 2006. During the same session, half the face was injected with simple filtered and washed fat, and the other half was instead treated with centrifuged fat. Subjective and objective methods were used to evaluate the results. The subjective methods included a questionnaire, sent to all patients, accompanied by an explanatory letter. The objective method involved the evaluation of preoperative and postoperative photographs by a three-member jury. The average follow-up period was 12 months.

RESULTS: The authors' experimental work demonstrates that there was no significant difference between the two fat-processing techniques. In the long term, the implanted hemifacial regions produced comparable results.

CONCLUSION: The authors, following their personal experience based on the reported data, went back to using the simple filtered fat after some years of use of centrifuged fat.