Liposuction: Why thin cannulas are best

Liposuction is a procedure that extracts fat from targeted areas of the body resulting in surprisingly dramatic body contour changes. It is the most commonly performed plastic surgery procedure and there are several Liposuction techniques based on the amount of anesthetic injected into the tissues, the method used to suction the fat, and the size of the cannula used (A cannula is the long, slender rod which is used to extract the fat).

In this video, I focus on the history of Liposuction cannulas to explain why thin cannulas give the best surgical result and why I prefer the manual method to the new laser Liposuction techniques. While the initial purpose of early Liposuction cannulas, which were very large, was to remove as much fat as quickly as possible, there were problems with tissue defects. Cannulas became smaller and smaller allowing a greater finesse and much better, smoother results.

While I am quite interested in the cutting-edge new frontiers in plastic surgery, I have a problem with ultrasound and laser lipo because while normal Liposuction works by sucking out the fat, with laser and ultrasound you also get the destruction of tissue around it with heat and then you come back later and suck out that tissue, creating a third element and you’re not seeing the damage that’s being created. In some cases, it works, but I’ve seen some disasters from ultrasonic Liposuction. Right now scientific expositions, and even the people who are working on perfecting laser Liposuction, tell you they are still developing those techniques and working on dosages.

For really beautiful, smooth Liposuction results, manual extraction using thin cannulas with small holes is the gold standard.