This week’s ACA Question of the Week came from an ACA follower on Facebook. The patient asks, “I’m a 35-year-old mother and I’ve been considering SmartLipo. What are my options?” Dr. Thomas Pane, ACA’s founder and Chief Medical Officer, chose this question because SmartLipo is one of the more frequently requested and simultaneously misunderstood procedures he does. Because of this, it made for a good opportunity to dispel a couple of misconceptions about the procedure while also addressing a question that we at ACA receive quite often, hopefully helping other patients better understand what SmartLipo is and is not.

Dr. Pane began by asking a question of his own. “Is the skin loose over the abdominal area, or is the skin relatively tight with pinchable fat underneath?” The difference, he explained, is that while liposuction may be viable either way, if the skin is loose, further procedures such as a tummy tuck may be necessary to alleviate sagging skin on the belly area. If the skin is relatively firm, then liposuction by itself may be appropriate. As with any other procedure, patients should always remember that a verbal description of the patient’s needs is no substitute for an in-person consultation.

He also pointed out the difference between SmartLipo and regular liposuction. SmartLipo is just one of a number of different technologies that patients have available to them for removing unwanted fat. When using SmartLipo, laser energy is directed into the subcutaneous fat to help break it up prior to removal from the body. This allows the surgeon to do more internal sculpting of the area where the liposuction is being performed and may reduce or eliminate the need for a compression garment after the procedure, depending upon the area and the amount of fat removed, among other factors.

“Regular” liposuction simply means a procedure where fat cells are removed from the body through a process of making incisions in the desired area and using vacuum suction to take out the unwanted fat deposits. This kind of liposuction is more likely to require a compression garment, which is designed to both protect the surgical site while it heals and sculpt and contour the area into the desired shape. There is really no wrong way to have liposuction done, and one is not necessarily superior to the other in terms of long-term results from a medical or overall patient benefit standpoint.

One key difference between these procedures, and something that needs to be considered prior to undergoing SmartLipo versus standard liposuction, is the intended destination of the fat that is removed. For patients who want additional work done, including breast augmentation, Brazilian butt lift and similar procedures, harvesting the fat to transplant elsewhere is not generally something that can be done with SmartLipo because the high-intensity lasers used in the procedure burn the fat, rendering it unusable elsewhere. This means SmartLipo is best for targeted procedures where the patient’s only objective is the sculpting of a single area, or where the sole endgame is to remove and discard the fat. More “typical” liposuction leaves the fat cells intact, making them easily transplantable and therefore better for patients who want more intensive body sculpting procedures after the fat is removed.

Any kind of liposuction is a surgical procedure, and carries certain risks from anesthesia and of post-operative complications. Therefore, as always, following aftercare instructions and making sure to keep in contact about any concerns or apparent signs of a problem with the surgeon is crucial to assuring a positive outcome for the patient. In addition, ACA believes that experience counts and there’s no such thing as an overqualified cosmetic surgeon. Patients should always take care to actively seek out physicians with more than one board certification and a solid professional resume. Dr. Pane carries certifications in both cosmetic and general surgery and has performed hundreds of cosmetic surgery procedures.

If you would like to submit a question to Atlantic Coast Aesthetics and Dr. Thomas Pane, you can send us an email at https://acplasticsurg.com, call us at 561-422-4116, follow our Facebook page or visit our weekly Google Hangouts with Dr. Pane for more information. Your question could be ACA’s next Question of the Week and be answered live by Dr. Pane in person! Even if it’s not, we encourage anyone with questions about cosmetic surgery to feel free to ask us. Patient education is a crucial element of a successful outcome, and there’s no such thing as a “dumb” or “bad” question to us!