The Next Big Thing….Nanofat

Aesthetic physicians are constantly striving to find the best procedure/device to turn back time. This time, it is actually a procedure which has been used for decades, but with some modifications. Fat grafting is a procedure that harvests fat from one part of the body and then injects the fat into another area. It has been used to volumize the aging face, hands, and even breasts. Benefits of fat grafting in repairing slowing healing wounds and radiated tissue have shown there are additional qualities to this procedure other than just volume. It turns out that fat contains stem cells and growth factors, more than any other tissue in the body, even more than bone marrow. The component of the fat that contains the stem cells and growth factors is called the “stromal vascular fraction”, also know as SVF.

When digging down into the research, an interesting finding has been discovered. It turns out that most of the fat cells injected don’t actually survive. What actually happens is that the stems cells (Adipose Derived Stem Cells – ADSC) injected along with the fat cells (SVF) leads to new fat cell production.

So here’s the new modification of the procedure. There is new a way to separate the SVF from the fat, without affecting the viability of the stem cells. This process creates the so called Nanofat, a highly concentrated solution of stem cells and growth factors.

It is a process of using filters and screens which takes less than 15 minutes to perform. It turns out that fat cells make up about 80% of the volume of the fat extracted during the harvest. The filtration system leads to destruction of the fat cells (which don’t live anyways) and leads to a much thinner solution which can be injected using smaller cannulas or needles than typical fat grafting procedures.

It turns out that Nanofat actually contains little to no viable fat but is the popular term for the SVF derived from fat. To even further “energize” the Nanofat injections, Blood Therapy Injections or PRF is mixed with the solution. This process gives additional growth factors which benefit in the fat production and overall repair and rejuvenation of the areas treated.

Nanofat injections are often combined with fat grafting which is modified from the classical method. It has been found that the inconsistent “take” and lumpiness of fat grafting is related to large size and nonuniformity of the fat harvested. To overcome these hurdles, the harvesting process is now done with smaller cannulas and the fat is pushed thru filters to make uniformly smaller sized fat globules.

Nanofat is useful to treat:

1. Crepey skin around the eyes
2. Superficial lines and wrinkles
3. Smoker’s lip lines
4. Thin, atrophied skin
5. Severely sun damaged skin (in combination with other procedures)

The use of Nanofat, with or without fat grafting, requires a minor liposuction procedure to harvest the cells. This is done completely under local anesthesia. Only syringes are used as suction and the cannulas used are much smaller than typical liposuction. There will be some downtime of swelling, bruising, and redness, that typically lasts a few days or up to a week (longer in a minority of patients). Full results require about 9 months to fully appreciate – the time required for new fat and skin cells to be generated.

We now have a completely natural way to rejuvenate and reverse the affects of aging, using stem cells derived from fat cells – Nanofat. The process of isolation of the stem cells and growth factors from fat has become an extremely viable option with a 90 minute procedure.