Lipoemulsification versus lipoaspiration. Comparison of intraoperative blood loss and surgery time

Blood loss due to liposuction is one of the main problems in this kind of surgery, blood volume being up to 30%-35% of the whole liposucked volume. We studied the possible lower impact of ultrasound lipolysis in order to obviate this non negligible problem. For this purpose we treated 10 patients, females, aged between 28 and 55, such obese to overweight between 50% and 200%. These patients underwent ultrasound lipolysis surgery after any dietetic or any other treatment against obesity. No patient dropped out of the study. Each patient was treated, under general anesthesia, in a region included between an imaginary horizontal line passing through the umbilicus and another one through the middle of the femur. Thirty minutes after a bilateral infiltration with an epinephrine solution (1:500000 diluted, 28 C) 2 1 volume each side, the right side was treated with the liposucking cannula (0.4 cm diameter), the left one underwent ultrasound lipolysis with a titanium probe (0.5 cm diameter, SMEI Casale Monferrato, Italy). A liposucking probe every 10 minutes into the left side was inserted. Haemoglobin was detected (according to the method of Goodpasture) in the liposucked material. The result showed a statistically significant difference between the blood rate in the lipoaspirate and that one in the ultrasound lysed material. Ultrasound lipolysis is slower than lipoaspiration, but it also shows less risk of hemorrhage and fat embolism.