Comparative analysis of the effect of mesenchymal stem cells on viability of autologous fat transplants by histologic examination of resorption, fibrosis, volume decrease and revascularization of fat grafts: in vivo experiment

Background: Autotransplantation of adipose tissue have become one of the most popular subjects for scientific researches in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery. It has gained wide recognition and nowadays became the standard procedure for increasing volume or filling defects of soft tissues caused by trauma or processes of aging.  But despite all advantages of this technique it also has an essential shortcoming – partial necrosis with progressive resorption of transplanted adipose tissue. Achievements in cellular technologies have allowed to look at the problem of resorption from different angle. Objective: The authors compare autologous fat transplantation to adipose-derived stem cell–enriched lipografts. Methods : A group of 30 experimental rabbit models were included in this study and randomly divided into two groups. Fifteen models were treated with autologous fat transplantation, and the remaining fifteen were treated with adipose-derived stem cell–enriched lipografts. Further results have been estimated at 1, 3 and 6 months after the initial surgical procedure. Results : Analysis of the survival rates of autotransplanted adipose tissue at stages 1, 3, 6 months were much higher in groups where grafts were enriched with stem cells.  Conclusions : Adipose derived stem cell enriched lipografts have shown better angiogenetic and survival potential comparing to standard procedure. We assume that ASCs differentiated into vascular endothelial cells and contributed to neoangiogenesis in the acute phase of transplantation. These findings may partly explain why transplanted aspirated fat does not survive well and suggest clinical potential of the ASCs method for soft tissue augmentation. Further long-term studies are necessary to confirm the favorable results seen in this study.