A method for cryopreserving adipose tissue has been patented: thanks to the public-private partnership between Lipobank, a research and development company in the field of tissue cryogenic science, and RER Skin Bank (Emilia-Romagna Region) it is now possible to cryopreserve one’s adipose tissue ensuring maximum vitality and quality, in total safety and traceability. It is a new frontier that will make the life of the patients who will have to undergo this type of treatment much easier, having in fact eliminated the only major Achilles heel of the procedure, i.e. the need to carry out multiple operations to remove the fat for perishability of cells.
The cryopreservation of fat will in fact facilitate fat transplant operations (lipofilling) which are widely used in both plastic, orthopedic and vascular reconstructive surgery (but it also finds applications in aesthetic surgery). But the field in which lipofilling finds the greatest indications is post-mastectomy breast reconstruction.
Two centers that have already begun to use the method on the first patients are the Plastic Surgery of the National Cancer Institute of Rome directed by Roy de Vita and the San Francesco Clinic of Verona under the guidance of Gino Rigotti, former Full Professor of Surgery Model of the University of Verona. The presentation of the project will take place on 15 June as part of the international breast surgery congress ‘Rome Dubai Breast Symposium’.
Technically, the lipofilling procedure is divided into two phases: collection and transfer. The first is the most invasive and is the one that requires deep anesthesia and consequently hospitalization. The second, much easier, is very minimally invasive and could be performed (if it were an autonomous procedure unrelated to the first phase) on an outpatient basis only with local anesthesia. And this is where cryopreservation comes into play, which allows you to carry out a single surgery in which a large amount of tissue is taken which is divided into individual bags and then frozen at the end of the operation. When the subsequent infiltrations are necessary, the quantity of fat required will be thawed from time to time and re-infiltrated with a minimally invasive procedure which can be carried out on an outpatient basis with local anesthesia only.
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