Autologous fat grafting in the face and neck: Multinational trends and knowledge of the safety, applications, and indications considering oncologic risk potential

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Introduction: Autologous fat grafting (AFG) has both aesthetic and reconstructive applications. Described by Neuber in 1893 there are numerous applications of AFG as the body of evidence for its use has expanded. The earliest controversies were evident in lipofilling for breast defects post-oncological treatment, and to this day some countries do not allow it for fear of inducing tumourogenesis in an oncologically ablated field. Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) have been shown pro-oncologic behaviour in xenografts, however, this has not been reproduced in clinical observations thus far. Material: and Methods We sought to review contemporary harvesting and processing techniques for AFG in the craniofacial region, therefore distributed a survey to evaluate the opinion and clinical impact of oncological risk across four European countries with possibly differing clinical attitudes. Results: In the craniofacial region AFG is mostly used for aesthetic indications, cannula hand-held aspiration and centrifugation seem to be the predominant harvesting and processing techniques. Half of our respondents tell patients about the possibility of pro-oncologic behaviour of AFG . We found no significant geographical differences between the German-speaking and the English groups concerning their harvesting and processing technique. German participants seem to perform AFG more often and mostly

Evidence level

Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.

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