Dr. Robert Whitfield explains why a patient's two failed fat transfers weren't due to rejection. The body doesn't reject fat grafts. Instead, graft survival depends on the patient's internal environment and overall wellness at the time of surgery.
And I like to begin by telling a story. I think that's probably the best way to frame this. A patient came to me last year. She had had a fat transfer twice in the past, two different surgeons, both well-respected, well-credentialed. Both times the fat transfer didn't survive. She lost an overwhelming majority of it each time, and She was really frustrated, of course. Um, she came to me and said she thinks her body rejects her fat, and we'll discuss that with that later, how that's not possible. That's just what she was told, that some people's bodies just don't hold it. Here's what I told her: your body didn't reject anything. Your body did exactly what it was designed to do. It responded to the environment it was already in. And the state of wellness, if you want to think of it like that. The question is not whether or not fat works, because of course it does. The question is what was happening inside her body that made survival impossible before the fat was ever placed. And so that's what we're going to talk about tonight, and the answer is typically not what you would think.
