Liposuction is a surgical procedure aimed at the removal of adipose tissue by using small suction cannulas. The indication to the procedure arises for the removal of localised adiposities or those areas where fat is particularly exuberant and the body silhouette is de-harmonised.
The fundamental cells that make up the fat are called adipocytes and have the particular characteristic of not being able to replicate in adults except in extreme conditions. From this concept, we can see how weight increase depends on their volumetric increase and not on their multiplication. All this is well known to ladies who attend the gym or who engage in severe low-calorie diets in a vain attempt to eliminate the annoying fat pads on the thighs without any satisfaction. That is not to say that the gym and diet are useless, indeed a proper diet is the basis of health and it is the best way to lose weight all the more if supported by adequate physical activity. Liposuction, on the other hand, does not have the ambition to make people lose weight but has the sole purpose of eliminating localised fat deposits, that is, irreversibly remodeling the body silhouette and harmonising its shape.
Through special small diameter cannulas, the surgeon removes the adipose tissue in a selective way where it is exuberant, minimising the signs of the surgical action to very small, scarcely visible millimetric scars.
It is a procedure that can be indicated after adolescence and with the necessary exceptions, in every age group and for many areas of the body: the thighs, the abdomen and the hips, the arms, the region below the chin, the knees and ankles.
Known as liposuction, lipoaspiration and liposculpture, these definitions all come down to the same surgical procedure, albeit with a greater emphasis on the surgical rather than aesthetic appearance or vice versa. However, there are various execution techniques.
Mechanical liposuction involves the use of cannulas connected to an aspirator that generates negative pressure. The cannula penetrates the adipose tissue and detaches the frustules that are gradually aspirated. In its traditional version, the instruments are operated by the surgeon’s hand unlike other devices in which part of the movement of the cannula is given by pneumatic or electrical systems. In ultrasonic liposuction, cannulas are used which are able to break up the fat through the emission of ultrasound; the laser produces the same effect by the emission of a laser beam. With both procedures, in the case of modest areas, the demolished fat remains in the context of the adipose tissue and then will be resorbed by the body. When dealing with larger volumes, it is advisable to integrate it with an aspiration of tissue debris.
In any case, the intervention can be carried out under local anaesthesia for small areas, but if the amount of adipose tissue to be removed or the extension of the area to be treated is significant, it is necessary to resort to a form of major anaesthesia such as sedation or the general anaesthesia. Depending on the size of the procedure, a day hospital setting or a short hospitalisation is expected. In the first days after the surgery the patient complains of a surface pain that is accompanied by some bruises for a couple of weeks. A dressing provides compression and is to be worn for a time varying from two weeks to a month.
The history of liposuction is quite recent: after the first timid references in the twenties, its birth is located in France in the early 80s from where it spread throughout the world in a short space of time, making it one of the most practised cosmetic surgeries; in Italy there are about one hundred thousand procedures per year but the trend is constantly growing.