THE COLOR OF LIPOSUCTION ASPIRATE

Posted On: June 22, 2012 Author: The Office of Dr. Stuart Linder Posted In: Home, Liposuction

Below you will see four examples of different color aspirate, all from Dr. Linder’s liposuction patients.  Tumescent liposuction technique is the gold standard with the American Board of Plastic Surgery.  The three components of the infiltration include Lidocaine, epinephrine and sodium chloride or lactated Ringer’s solution.  It is the epinephrine that causes constriction, reducing bruising, bleeding and blood loss.  The specimen with the darker red cobblestone appears to have more bleeding and blood mixed in.  This is a patient that may have taken an aspirin or an Advil inadvertently or a patient that may simply have a slight coagulopathy.  The yellow and more purified fat, as you can see in the opposite spectrum, is pure lipo aspirate with less than 1% blood loss.  This is the most pure form of tumescent lipo technique in which 99% of the aspirate is pure adipose tissue and lipocytes with less than 1% fat.  As more red cobblestoning occurs, it becomes more obvious that the EBL (estimated blood loss) is increased and patients usually present with more bruising concurrently.

The tumescent technique is the gold standard with the American Board of Plastic Surgery because of up to five liters of lipo aspirate can be removed at one setting under general anesthesia safely, as long as the epinephrine affects reduce the EBL blood loss and amount of blood within the aspirate.

Fat Liposuction Color Chart