An Update on Cryopreservation of Adipose Tissue

Currently, fat transplantation occurs immediately after harvesting procedures. Since low rates of fat graft take are well reported in the literature, many patients require multiple surgical procedures for fat graft harvest. These subsequent procedures lead to increased cost, donor site morbidity and patient discomfort in the long-term. The ability to preserve our patients own adipose aspirate would allow us to counteract these shortcomings and ultimately improve the clinical outcome after fat grafting. Unfortunately, there is no optimal and practical adipose tissue cryopreservation protocol for use by the plastic surgeon at the present time. Due to this dilemma, the senior author has set out to study this concept in an effort to create a protocol, which is both technically sound as well as clinically achievable to allow for the long-term preservation of adipose tissue. This article aims to outline this effort, review current clinical applications that have been reported in the literature and finally detail exciting future perspectives in the use of preserved lipoaspirates for repeated fat grafting procedures or in the form of cell-based therapy engineered for reconstructive endeavors for our patients.