Brazilian Butt Lift:
What is a Brazilian Butt Lift?
Social trends vary through the ages. In the last few decades, having a larger round buttocks has been popularized by entertainment celebrities and social media.
This procedure involves injecting a patient’s own fat into the buttock area to produce a rounder more prominent buttock cheek.
The procedure is done under General Anaesthetic with the patient prone (face down).
Using a liposuction technique, a substantial amount of fat is harvested from other areas of the body, prepared, and then the fat graft is injected into the appropriate strategic locations in the buttock area to produce the desired effect.
A large volume of fat graft may be injected.
The anatomic layer that the fat is injected, is in the space between the buttock muscle and the subcutaneous fat under the skin. The superficial layer of the buttock muscle is often injected also. The deeper muscle layers are avoided because there are very large pelvic veins in this area.
The injection of the fat is a blind procedure: the surgeon cannot precisely place the injecting cannula in exactly the right space because of the thickness of the buttock tissue. At best, it is a guess as to exactly where the fat graft is going.
A very significant risk with this procedure is when the cannula is placed too deeply, and the large veins within the deeper muscle layers of the buttock are accidentally injected with fat graft.
If fat is then injected within the blood stream, it may result in what is called a fat embolism. This can be fatal.
If this occurs, the operator does not have any notion that he/she is too deep into the tissues. He/She may continue to inject fat into the pelvic veins further compounding the problem.
The statistics reported in numerous studies looking at the safety of fat graft injection into the buttocks suggest that the mortality rate (the chance of a patient dying during the operation or shortly after a Brazilian Butt Lift procedure) is 1 in 2,500 patients.
Considering that the risk of dying in any other cosmetic procedure exceeds 1 in 500,000, the Brazilian Butt Lift procedure has an unacceptably high risk.
**For this reason, Dr. Giuffre DOES NOT offer this procedure in his practice.**