Red Sox yes! Fat graft no! Stay far,far away from this Boston area Dermatologist’s plan

The Boston Herald last week did a “gee whiz” piece on a dermatologist(!) promising to start performing breast enlargement via fat grafting despite the fact that there is no literature documenting it’s either safe or effective. Over the last year I think I’ve mentioned this idea once or twice commenting on some of the technology evolving to better harvest stem cells from liposuction aspirate.

Irrespective of whether it’s appropriate for your average dermatologist to do large volume liposuction (which is required for harvesting the graft material) and go anywhere near your breasts, there’s a couple things that are really troubling with this.

1. Is it a good idea to out pleuripotent stem cells in a cancer prone organ like the breast?

2. What’s the effect on mammograms from (inevitable) areas of fat necrosis?

3. Does fat grafting and the internal breast tissue scarring/distortion that will result, prohibit conventional techniques for breast surgery from being performed?

4. Can touch-up grafts be successfully done?

5. Can predictable volumes of graft be obtained in a material (fat) who’s success rate traditionally hovers around 50%?

6. Has this doctor established an IRB (internal review board) protocol for this kind of human experimentation (which is what this is?)

Call me a cynic, but I find it unlikely that these kind of issues have really crossed the mind of this dermatologist from the rather flip quotes in the newspaper story. Fat grafting of the breast has a role in the armatarium of breast surgery and is being studied, but “cowboy medicine” like this article describes sticks in my craw. Fat grafts for primary breast augmentation is a subject that demands carefully designed multi-site studies.