Will Fat Injections Work To Improve My Scar?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I have a depressed cheek scar above my nasolabial fold from a previous skin cancer removal using a Moh’s technique. If you inject fat do you utilize the Coleman technique with micro droplets to ensure the tissue becomes a graft and not just a temporary filler? Anyhow, I do not like the dynamic feature when I move the facial muscle as well as when the sight catches  the groove of the scar. I have attached some pictures showing the scar. Thank you for your time.

A:  Thank you for sending your pictures. I did not realize how young you were given that you have had Moh’s. It is actually a reasonable result in a difficult aesthetic area. The only modification I would make to my previous statement is that I would perform a geometric scar revision at the same time as microdroplet fat injections underneath. Even though the scar is well placed and has about as much narrowness as could be hoped for, there is always going to be a ‘groove effect’. That is just an unavoidable phenomenon in linear scar in that area. The scar line may need to changed from a pure straight line to get a better scar effect. Options include either fat injections with concurrent laser resurfacing (#1) or fat injections with a concurrent geometric broken line scar revision. (GBLSR) The conservative approach would be # 1 as GBLSR can always be done later based on the scar outcome. The more aggressive approach would be #2.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana