Statistics show that the Brazilian buttlift (BBL) causes one death for every 3,000 operations.  The procedure involves liposuction of fat from the abdomen, sides, back, arms, thighs or other fatty areas and injecting the harvested fat to the butt and hips to improve the shape, projection, roundness, and volume.  English surgeons were advised not to perform BBL operations in 2018. The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) told its members not to perform the Brazilian buttlift until more safety information was available.

Historically, the injected fat was placed more deeply into the muscle to increase the viability of fat grafts.  This injection into the muscle would reduce the risk for fat necrosis (fat death, dead fat).  These deeper injections were associated with a higher rate of fatal pulmonary emboli and nonfatal pulmonary emboli.

The risk involved in the operation is that the fat which is injected into large veins can travel to the lungs, leading to severe illness or death.  The procedure can lead to infection and dead tissue (fat necrosis, dead fat, fat death).

On October 11, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) announced its decision to launch a formal review of the fat-grafting surgery known as the Brazilian butt lift (BBL).

In August 2018, the ASPS, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and several other plastic surgery societies formed the International Task Force for Safety in Gluteal Fat Grafting to conduct studies and establish more detailed safety guidelines.  These safety guidelines include superficial injection of fat with larger cannulae so that the risk for intravascular injection is minimized. This was the method pioneered by Dr. Kenneth Hughes in 2015 as the safer alternative to the original intramuscular injection technique used for Brazilian buttlift.

For more information on Dr. Kenneth Hughes’s Safer Brazilian Buttlift and the thousands of the more superficial Brazilian buttlifts Dr. Kenneth Hughes has performed, please visit https://www.drkennethhughesbbl.com