Injectable tissue regeneration is a technique where we harvest some of the patient’s fat. The fat is drawn through a cannula into a syringe, much like taking blood.
Although it’s similar to a filler, when we use the patient’s own fat tissue, we don’t necessarily get the heightened kind of look of a synthetic filler, which some people like, but personally I’m not in favor of. If a patient has lost volume in two or more areas of their face, it means the tissue in both the deep and the superficial fat compartments are starting to shrink. The hipotesis is that as the microcirculation of the skin surface is compromised by sun damage, the underlying dermis and fat begin to shrink or atrophy. With deflation comes laxity, and this is facilitated by facial expression, which since the perpendicular connections to the surface shrink, the layers of the skin begin to shear, producing laxity. Well, if you replace that with like tissue in the proper compartments when it first becomes apparent, then you’re increasing the patient’s facial volume, or mass, and now literally changing the mathematical curve of decay.
In addition, you are making new blood vessels and reversing the changes in elastin and collagen that occur with aging. If this is done earlier, when first perceived by the patient, then it may be preventive, and possibly laxity will not occur to the same extent, if at all.
What we’re seeing is when we measure facial volume over a 2-year period in these patients, we actually see trophism. Their facial volume improves for 24 months, in spite of no weight gain. What that means is that, along with increasing facial volume, we also have microscopic findings of tissue regeneration and formation of new blood supply. In fact, we are actually reversing some of the age-related changes in elastin and collagen.
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