Joris van Dongen

201 PRP enriched facial lipofilling INTRODUCTION Lipofilling, i.e. autologous fat transplantation or fat grafting, has become an important treatment modality in facial rejuvenation procedures: it is a safe procedure that requires only limited additional operating time. The presence of ASCs (Adipose stem Cells) in the lipograft 1 could result in tissue regeneration 2-4 . This has resulted in a paradigm shift towards the combination of facial rejuvenation by using both surgical lifting techniques as well as lipofilling procedures to restore both volume 5, 6 and tissue damage on a cellular level. By this combination of both surgical lifting and lipofilling, effects of gravity, loss of skin elasticity due to elastin degradation, loss of volume due to fat atrophy and bone resorption 7, 8 are all well addressed. Fat grafting not only restores volume; it is also attributes to regeneration processes that become apparent by improved surface structure and tissue elasticity 9 . Nature’s own regenerative source of wound healing is clot formation after platelet aggregation, homing of the cells involved in repair and fibronogenesis. Another reliable manner to produce injectable clots is the generation of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and to use that to augment wound healing. PRP both serves as an instant scaffold for regeneration as well as a rich source of pro-regenerative growth factors 10 . With extensive experience of the use of PRP as an additive to facial lipofilling procedures in our clinic dating back to 2005, retrospective analysis revealed several significant beneficial effects when adding PRP to the lipograft 11 . We hypothesized that the addition of PRP to lipografts would augment tissue regeneration. This hypothesis was subsequently tested in this double-blind randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial for facial lipofilling.