FAT GRAFTING IN BREAST SURGERY

Oncoplastic breast surgery aims to optimize aesthetic results while ensuring oncological safety. In this context, fat graft applications have become an important complementary method in terms of re-constructing the breast contour and obtaining a more natural-looking breast and increasing soft tissue quality in both flap reconstructions and breast repairs with silicone implants. The method, which is ap-plied by obtaining the patient’s own fat by liposuction, purifying it and injecting it into the target area, can eliminate asymmetry, volume loss or contour irregularities in the breast. Fat injection is used to increase skin quality with its regenerative effect in skin deformities that occur after radiotherapy. The most important advantages of this method are that it is autologous, so there is no risk of immunological reaction, it provides a softness and appearance similar to natural tissue, and it is a repeatable and min-imally invasive procedure. Although the potential effect of fat grafts on breast cancer recurrence was initially controversial, studies conducted in recent years have shown that fat injection does not increase local recurrence rates with appropriate patient selection. The most common complications of this meth-od are fat necrosis, cyst formation, and microcalcifications. These findings may cause false positives radiologically, but differential diagnosis is possible when evaluated by an experienced radiologist. Fat injection in oncoplastic breast surgery is a safe and effective auxiliary technique that provides more successful aesthetic results.