No abstract

No abstract

This study evaluates the viability of adipose aspirates harvested with the LipiVage system (Genesis Biosystems Inc, Lewisville, TX), a newly developed fat harvesting device, and determines a potentially preferred method for possible large-quantity fat graft harvesting. Adipose aspirates were harvested with the LipiVage system from the abdomen of 16 female patients (group 1, n = 8) according to the instruction by the manufacturer and with conventional liposuction (group 2, n = 8). Samples from conventional liposuction were spun at 50 g for 10 minutes and the resulting middle layer of fat was collected. All fat graft samples were evaluated with trypan blue vital staining for viable adipocyte count, glycerol-3-phosphatase dehydrogenase (G3PDH) assay for intracellular enzyme activity, and histology. In this study, group 1 had significantly higher viable adipocyte count than group 2 had (3.7 +/- 0.64 versus 2.37 +/- 0.56 x 10(6) /mL, P = 0.0021). G3PDH assay showed a marked increase of intracellular enzyme activity in group 1 compared with in group 2 (0.61 +/- 0.10 versus 0.34 +/- 0.13 U/mL, P = 0.00045). Histology revealed normal structures of fragmental fatty tissues in both groups. While adipose aspirates by both modalities maintain normal structure, the LipiVage system yields a greater number of viable adipocytes and sustains a higher level of intracellular enzyme activity within fat grafts and can potentially be a preferred method of choice for large-quantity fat graft harvesting.

The authors' results indicate that although there is a latency of cell growth after an optimal cryopreservation, cryopreserved adipose aspirates can yield a significant number of processed lipoaspirate cells compared with fresh aspirates and may be a reliable source of human processed lipoaspirate cells because they can still be processed later after long-term preservation.

Our results indicated that an optimal cryopreservation approach that utilizes a combination of DMSO and trehalose as cryoprotective agents appears to provide good long-term preservation of adipose aspirates obtained from conventional lipoplasty, albeit not as ideal as fresh specimens. An in vivo study will be conducted to confirm the results from our present in vitro study.