Liposuction: A Historical Overview
Liposuction is getting more and more popular among population. Everyone is undertaking different operational interventions on some areas of their body. Have you wondered when liposuction, so commonplace today, was first invented? The first mention of the word “liposuction” was in 1977- it was a report published by the Italian physician G. Fischer.
Liposuction was invented as a successful operation in 1974 by the same Giorgio Fischer. Illouz and Fournier were the French surgeons to further evolve liposuction around 1978. They used blunt tipped cannulas.
Around the time of 1980, liposuction has already become an important part of American surgery, although patients still evaded it due to the healthy defects, including bleedings and scars of incisions, which were left from the operation. It was not until 1985, when Dr Jeffrey Klein, a dermatologist form California, invented the tumescent technique, that liposuction became really popular among a lot of people in the US. The tumescent technique is a revolution in modern surgery, as it is performed by local anesthesia, using only small -diameter cannulas. This reduced to a minimum the unpleasant after effects of bleeding and scars on the treated area. The cannulas of that time were of about 6-to 10 mm, in comparison to today’s minor-diameter cannulas of about 2 mm. The cross sectional areas were 10 to 25 times greater than today’s finer operational interventions.
Furthermore, the wet technique evolved. It included penetration of different medical substances, such as epinephrine, into the areas to be sucked out. This vasoconstructive solution prevents the area from bleeding and other postoperative defects. The dry technique, which was developed earlier, was known as using no infiltration into the body areas.
But how did liposuction finally come to the US? 1982 was the crucial point when several American dermatologists, plastic and cosmetic surgeons visited France to observe Illouz do liposuction. The technique was easy to catch, and in the next 1983, Americans were doing liposuction using general anesthesia, insufficient regional anesthesia, or hard sedatives supplemented by small volumes of local anesthesia. But liposuction was not getting to the mass public until the tumescent technique was discovered. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s liposuction was basically associated with excessive bleeding, prolonged recovery time, and disfiguring irregularities of the skin.
It was about that time when the tumescent technique started catching up popularity amongst surgeons.
After the discovery of this amazing technique, Dr Klein started giving lectures on the subject to a lot of students. By that time, liposuction with local anesthesia was considered impossible. But not to Dr Klein: he was the first to do a small volume liposuction using only anesthesia on the inflicted area. But the real question that troubled the minds of the surgeons, was how much volume of fat can be extracted when using only local anesthesia. Dr Klein soon found an answer to that problem. The ideal quantity was 500 mg of lidocaine and 0.5 mg of epinephrine, used in many operations. But Dr Klein soon discovered that the increase of the dilution also raised the quantity of fat to be extracted from subcutaneous areas. This discovery was of great importance to the liposuction procedure, but it also has its limitations: there is a certain quantity of lidocaine to be injected safe for the body. This dilution was ahead to be discovered.
The solution turned out to be 500 mg of lidocaine and 1 mg of epinephrine in 50 milliliters. This liquid became the most successful one, removing a 100 mg of fat. Dr Klein was the first man to do a tumescent liposuction on the 5th of April, 1985, on the abdomen area of a patient. The patient felt neither pain, nor bleeding. The dilution turned out to be successful, and the new era of the liposuction surgery was about to begin.