Month: January 2022

The so-called Vampire Facelift has been in the news recently, and this article explains more about what this approach is, and the benefits it provides.

Platelet enriched fat combined with synthetic dermal fillers for tissue loss replacement is an approach gaining in popularity amongst cosmetic doctors, and the Vampire Facelift is just one of a number of procedures based on these techniques.

Platelets are blood cells rich in biologically active Growth Factors (GF) that stimulate and control cell growth, division, and repair.  The best known are Platelet Derived Growth Factor (PDGF) and Transforming Growth Factor (TGF). The former acts as a signalling mediator for chemotaxis – purposeful migration of cells specialising in repair to the site of an injury. TGF stimulates synthesis of inter-cellular matrix proteins, which provide a support scaffolding for cells. Other GFs produced by platelets include Basic Fibroblast GF, Insulin-Like GF, Platelet derived Epidermal GF, and Vascular Endothelial GF. All of these are involved in promoting tissue repair and growth by controlling cell proliferation.

The innovation of these procedures is that the platelets used are obtained from the patient’s own blood. The needed cells are extracted from other blood factors by centrifuging.  The platelet end-product is a solid, which is cut into small pieces and mixed with a patient’s own fat or, alternatively, with a synthetic dermal filler. The mixture can then be injected into various parts of the body.  Thanks to GFs, when the mixture is injected into the face it triggers a natural healing process that thickens the skin, provides more volume, smooths skin surface wrinkles and folds, and can diminish acne scarring.

Vaser lipo prices

The cost of liposuction is an important factor in deciding whether to undergo such a procedure, but in evaluating price, it is also important to consider a number of key factors.  These include the level of care, patient safety, the quality of medecines and other materials used, and the experience of the surgeon.  These factors all contribute to the aesthetic result, which in the end should be the most important factor of your decision.

If a surgical procedure such as Vaser lipo is being offered at a discount, or seems like an unusually good deal then this article should be of interest to you because we fully outline the essential components contributing to the prices we quote in our clinic.  This article complements our main page on on Vaser liposuction.

Fat to be removed

Operating and staffing a surgical theatre is costly, and is typically assessed on an hourly basis.  The time needed to perform a Vaser lipo procedure is proportional to the volume of fat to be removed and the density of connective tissue holding it in place.  More fat and denser connective tissue means a longer and more arduous procedure.  At our clinic, we assess your skin type, and estimate the fat volume to remove using an ultrasound scanner.  We measure the fat layer thickness of the areas to be treated, and multiply these by their respective widths and heights to produce an accurate estimate.  This provides a consistent and repeatable process for assessing the real staffing and theatre costs needed for your procedure.  It means that we won’t be tempted to cut corners once the operation has started because there will be no surprises about the effort needed, and this will have been fairly reflected in the price we quote you.

High-def versus general bodysculpting

The objective of high-def lipo is to remove enough fat so that the muscular structure can be seen.  This requires more care and precision than general bodysculpting, and requires more time in the operating theatre.  Consequently, prices for high-def lipo are a bit higher.

Staff and materials

For the safety of the patient, we fully staff our operating theatre with a surgeon, assisting doctor, nurse, and when needed, an anaesthetist.  This means that your treatment will go more smoothly, with less probability of complications or accidents.  Not all practitioners take the same precautions as in our clinic, and this may explain differences in pricing.

In addition, we only use top graded materials during our procedures, as well as bona fide Vaser equipment and probes.

Operating theatre

Many Vaser doctors use public and private hospitals to peform liposuction procedures, which in part can reduce their overall cosrts.  However, due to the high volume of sick patients treated in hospitals, from a safety perspective, and in the interests of reducing potential infections for our patients, we manage our own operating theatre.

Post-operative care

Good post-operative care is key to getting a good aesthetic result from Vaser lipo.  Monitoring skin retraction, adjusting the compression garments, and assisting the drainage of fluids are all essential to providing top quality after care.  For these reasons, we include five post-operative visits in the prices for all our procedures.  Click here for more information on our post-operative Vaser liposuction care.

Guidelines

During a face-to-face consultation your surgeon will discuss your objectives, evaluate your suitability, and make the ultrasound measurements needed to give you the best price Vaser lipo procedure (click here to read more about our Vaser consultation process).  Each patient is unique, and so a pre-operative consultation is mandatory, both from the view of medical regulation, as well as from the one of safety.  However, the following pricing table is fairly accurate, and can provide good guidance on the cost of this type of procedure in our clinic: