The latest cosmetic craze has grave origins.
Across the country, women are embracing a buzzed-about injectable filler made from donated cadaver fat — yes, that’s tissue from dead bodies — to fill in, smooth over and enhance their shape.
But one NYC plastic surgeon isn’t buying the hype and is flatly refusing to use the so-called “off the shelf fat” in breast procedures, even as it’s billed as the next big thing in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Tommaso Addona, president of New York Plastic Surgical Group, isn’t actually against using cadaver fat fillers like Alloclae as a tool — but he’s not ready to use it to give anyone a bigger chest.
“If you took this product and used it in a different setting, my anxiety would drop,” he told The Post. “But the breast is a unique organ, and I think it needs to be respected appropriately.”
He added that he’s “not comfortable” with the research that’s currently available.
“Proceeding with placing this in other areas of the body is totally OK with me,” Addona said. “However, the breast, I think, warrants more attention, more studies and more evaluation in the coming years.”
One of Addona’s main concerns centers on whether AlloClae could complicate routine breast cancer screening and other imaging tests.
With limited long-term data, questions remain about whether the injected, pre-dead material could lead to fat necrosis, or the death of fatty tissue.
“If you take a patient’s own fat, the potential of having dead fat is pretty small, but it’s not zero,” said Addona, who has performed more than 10,000 breast cases. “I don’t know what the potential of this fat not surviving is.”
If the filler fails to integrate in the breast, it could potentially form oil cysts or calcifications that show up as hard, suspicious masses on imaging like mammograms — potentially triggering false alarms for cancer.
“That, to me, would generate concern, because a radiologist could say, ‘This looks suspicious, we should consider monitoring this, evaluating this, biopsying this,’ ultimately leading to more challenges for the patient and more anxiety,” Addona said.
While a preclinical study in mice showed AlloClae demonstrated strong graft retention and integration over six months without tissue necrosis, questions remain about whether those findings will translate to humans — particularly over the long term.
“We know that the body’s behavior changes over time and what might look good in one or two years might not be the same in three, five, seven years or greater,” Addona said.
“For this, I would love to see a two to five to ten year outcome study that shows me there’s not some sort of recurring theme of swelling or rejection, which could be perceived as dead fat, or necrosis, where it’s not incorporating well.”
Fat grafting 101 — and where cadavers come in
Two decades ago, plastic surgeons leaned heavily on implants for procedures such as breast and gluteal augmentation — but in recent years, autologous fat grafting has surged in popularity.
The technique involves harvesting a patient’s own fat from areas like the abdomen or thighs via liposuction, purifying it and reinjecting it into targeted areas to add volume.
It’s shown to be safe and effective, but it comes with drawbacks.
First: downtime. In most cases, recovery from a breast fat transfer takes about six weeks, with patients typically needing to take one to two weeks off work.
Second: You need fat to spare. And while that may sound like a given, Addona estimates about 5% of patients are so petite and toned, they simply don’t have enough to work with.
That’s where newer offerings like AlloClae are being pitched as a workaround. Made by Tiger Aesthetics, the injectable is billed as the “first structural adipose tissue designed for aesthetic body procedures, providing cushioning, volume and support,” according to its website.
Sterilized and stripped of DNA from the deceased donor, the filler is said to preserve fat’s natural 3D honeycomb structure, “retaining the innate architecture of adipocytes (cells that store energy as fat) to provide immediate volume at the application site.”
It can be delivered via minimally invasive in-office injections by a qualified provider, without general anesthesia — meaning most patients can return to light activity within 24 hours.
“You’re basically up and running that afternoon,” Addona said.
For patients looking to round out their rear ends or smooth hip dips, the plastic surgeon these products are an “exciting” new option — but the lack of long-term breast data leaves lingering questions.
“I don’t see much literature that’s past 12 months, certainly less than two years,” Addona said.
While FDA-compliant, AlloClae is classified as a human cell and tissue product, allowing it to be marketed without full agency approval, unlike injectables such as Botox.
It only became widely available in the US last year, following a soft rollout in fall 2024, when select physicians began testing it. Before that, it had been studied only in a limited number of preclinical trials — many conducted in animals. While early signals have been promising, Addona said human data remains thin.
Earlier this month, researchers published a meta-analysis on structural adipose fillers that included just 10 human studies, covering 93 patients in total, most with relatively short follow-up periods.
Until longer-term studies exist, Addona plans to turn away patients dead-set on getting AlloClae — though he appears to be in the minority.
On social media, scores of plastic surgeons can be found touting the treatment as a quick fix for boosting breast volume, with commenters clamoring to get their hands on the off-the-shelf fat.
Many cite dissatisfaction with implants or past complications, seeking an alternative to foreign materials for augmentation.
Fortunately, Addona said most of these patients could achieve their desired results with traditional liposuction and fat grafting, which is backed by decades of clinical evidence.
“There are definitely a group of patients that are short on fat,” he noted. “But even in those cases, there’s often somewhere we can capture some to utilize.”
Tiger Aesthetics did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Read the full article here
