Dr. Kenneth Hughes, Los Angeles plastic surgeon, has performed thousands of fat transfers to the breast, the face, the butt, the calves, and traumatic deformities and for liposuction revision.  Dr. Hughes of Hughes Plastic Surgery is also a published author on the topic of fat grafting and is regarded as an expert in the field of fat grafting.  The long term survival of fat transfer is deemed to be permanent after the initial phase of revascularization of the free fat graft during the recovery process.  The percentage of the fat graft take is decidedly difficult to predict with ranges of 30% to 80% depending upon volumes transferred and the areas of the body into which the free fat grafts are placed.

Fang-Wei Li, MD recently published “Microenvironmental Changes in the Surviving Fat One Year After Autologous Fat Transplantation for Breast Augmentation” in they evaluated the changes in the surviving fat one year after free fat transfer for breast augmentation.  They concluded that there was some chronic inflammatory reactions detected one year after autologous fat transplantation for breast augmentation, the stem cell content was higher than that in normal fat, and the vascularity of the samples was similar.

This study confirms that stem cells are transferred and do survive after fat transfer.  In addition, it confirms fat survival and vascularity.