How Safe is the Brazilian buttlift or BBL in Los Angeles in 2021?

LOS ANGELES - April 14, 2021 - PRLog -- Much has changed in the Brazilian buttlift or BBL over the past few
years. The Brazilian buttlift or BBL involves the liposuction of fat
from areas of stubborn fat deposits in the body and transfer of that fat
to the butt for augmentation and shaping purposes. In the years prior
to 2017 or 2018, almost every training program and every surgeon
performing the Brazilian buttlift injected at least some of the fat into
the muscle. This injection of fat into the muscle undoubtedly improved
fat graft take. However, it also resulted in a 1 in 3000 fatal
pulmonary embolus and a 1 in 600 nonfatal pulmonary embolus.

Dr. Hughes has injected volumes of fat over 2000 cc per buttock using this subdermal method. Dr. Hughes has also performed over 2000 subdermal buttlifts without a fat embolus (fatal or nonfatal).

As with any new procedure, plastic surgeons or doctors never understand
every possible complication of a procedure until greater numbers of
procedures are performed. This is precisely what happened with the
Brazilian buttlift. No one could have predicted that fat injection with
a blunt cannula into the muscle would have resulted in a rare fat
embolus. Over 30 board-certified plastic surgeons had a fatal pulmonary
embolus prior to 2016 with this injection method. In addition, another
130 had a fat embolus of some sort. So this happened to many very
talented and well credentialed individuals. These numbers do not include
those deaths from non-board certified plastic surgeons and all of the
cosmetic surgeons in the US. So the frequency of these complications
was in fact much higher and occurred at a much greater frequency than
was stated in the studies performed at that time.

For the past 6 years, Dr. Kenneth Hughes, before the ASPS recommended the subcutaneous injection method, created a new paradigm in the subdermal injection of fat for the Brazilian buttlift or BBL (https://www.hughesplasticsurgery.com/body-procedures-los-...).

Though no one can say for sure if this technique completely eliminates the risk for fat embolus, the data looks promising (https://www.drkennethhughesbbl.com).