Abdominal fat can be used to reconstruct jaws

Did you ever realise that the extra fat cells stored in your body and often removed through procedures like liposuction can be used more productively by being put to use in regeneration and reconstructive surgery?

Specialists from Finland have achieved this and if all goes well, the procedures will be soon offered in the city as well.

Dr. George Sandor from the Regea Hospital in Finland was here for the commemoration of the 15th Anniversary of Balaji Dental and Craniofacial Hospital and the inauguration of state-of-the-art Cone Beam CT scan equipment, during which he also demonstrated how he had used fat stem cells to reconstruct a jaw at his hospital.

“While till date we had been using bone morphogenetic protein (rh-BMP2) in reconstructive surgery, it can now change with the new surgeries that have evolved through research on fat stem cells at our hospital. It is an expensive process costing almost 10,000 Euros, including lab costs, but that’s because all the equipment used in the process is new. The costs will eventually come down,” Dr. Sandor said.

The entire process of healing takes up to six months.

Chennai’s famous Faciomaxillary Surgeon Dr. S.M. Balaji said he would be going for these processes very soon and collaborating with the Finland specialists to offer the same in the city within one or two years.

“People were throwing away the extra fat after liposuction but this surgery shows how wasted fat can be used. Also, there is no lifelong medication in the process,” he said.

The CBCT scan equipment, is the first of its kind in Chennai and only the second machine in India to be incorporated into dental and craniofacial surgical practice.

This cutting edge technology offers rapid scan time, limited radiation time confining to the area of interest alone, higher image accuracy, reduced radiation exposure and interactive display modes that are unique to maxillofacial region.

By exposure to a regular CT scan , a patient can get exposure equivalent to 120 x-rays while the CBCT minimises the same to 4 or 5 times of ordinary x-ray exposure. It allows visualizing nerves, arteries and veins accurately. It is also an important diagnostic aid in Orthodontic treatment and Implantology.

This revolutionary radio-imaging equipment was inaugurated by the Governor of Tripura, Dr. D.Y.Patil. “It is a boon for children since the exposure to radiation is much lesser and the process less tedious,” Dr. Balaji pointed out.