Objective: to evaluate local and systemic recurrence of breast cancer in patients submitted to autologous fat grafting in the immediate reconstruction after conservative surgery for breast cancer. Methods: this is a historical cohort study comparing 167 patients submitted to conservative surgery without reconstruction (conservative surgery group) with 27 patients submitted to conservative treatment with immediate graft reconstruction, following the Coleman's technique (lipofilling group). All patients had invasive carcinoma and were operated by a single surgeon from 2004 to 2011. The postoperative follow-up time was 36 months. Results: the overall incidence of local recurrence was 2.4%. No patient in the lipofilling group had local recurrence during the study period. For systemic recurrence, the rates obtained were 3.7% (one patient) for the fat grafting group and 1.8% (three patients) for the conservative surgery group without reconstruction. Conclusion: there was no significant difference for local or systemic recurrence in the groups studied. Immediate autologous fat grafting appears to be a safe procedure.