Liposuction is surgery and its results (good or bad) are usually permanent, given that the patient maintains a stable weight. The lay person is easily confused today by the multiple terms and techniques offered to remove body fat. Resection of fat was crudely performed with suction machines during the late 1970’s in Italy. In the early 1980’s a French dermatologist, Illouz, introduced smaller suction cannulae devices and popularized his technique to the world. Prior to surgery he injected to the surgical site a solution of saline, lidocaine, epinephrine and hyaluronidase to provide anesthesia and constriction of blood vessels. Soon after, doctors, primarily other dermatologists, began injecting larger quantities of a similar solution into the tissue to be operated. This technique is known as Tumescence Liposuction. This technique could avoid the need for a general anesthetic—allowing the surgery to be performed in private offices and clinics (convenient for dermatologists who often do not have hospital operating privileges). I do not favor the Tumescent technique for three reasons: #1 it is dangerous to perform lipsuction outside of a hospital or an accredited outpatient surgical center; #2 the introduction of large amounts of lidocaine and epinephrine can result in delayed reaction, including death, to the absorption of the drugs; and #3 the introduction of large fluid volume into the tissue to be operated obscures the actual shape of the body and excess fat to be operated. This introduces uncertainty for the surgeon about how the final result will be and how much fat versus fluid has actually been removed.
More recent introductions such as ultrasonic liposuction and laser liposuction do not actually improve the final result so much as lessen the work of the surgeon. Both introduce, however, an added risk of injury to skin and nerves.
Before and After
