How Can My Buccal Lipectomy Be Reversed?

Q: Dr. Eppley, My buccal fat pads were removed when I had my LeFort surgery was done.  I wanted to get your opinion as to whether it’s possible to restore them using a fat graft from some other part of my body.  I don’t want to use synthetic injectables as I have a lot of concerns about them.  I’d only want to do this if Dr. Eppley thinks that he can achieve a moderately satisfactory correction of the issue.  I know there’s no way to actually reverse this buccal fat pad removal, but I was wondering what the state of the science and surgical practice was nowadays regarding what can be done to mitigate the loss.

.A: Buccal lipectomy reversal can be done by two methods….injection fat grafting and en bloc fat graft insertion. The fat injection method is as straightforward as it sounds and is done on the conventional injection method with the caveat that it is done from an intraoral approach given the depth of the buccal fat space. En bloc fat grafting is where a solid piece of fat is harvested, the buccal space reopened intraorally and a sold fart graft (83ccs in volume) out back directly into the buccal space. This would certainly be viewed as the anatomically accurate buccal lipectomy reversal approach.

The differences are that the fat injection method is minimally invasive and harvests the fat by liposuction but at the expense of the unpredictability of how well the fat will survive.

The en bloc or solid fat grafting method requires an intraoral open approach and harvests a fat graft by excision but with a more predictable fat graft survival.

Dr. Barry Eppley

World-Renowned Plastic Surgeon