A Study for the Biologic Changes and Viability of Adipose Tissue in Cryopreserved Fat Graft.

Han, Jae Jeong; Kwon, Yong Seok; Lee, Jang Ho; Heo, Jung; Lee, Keun Cheol; Kim, Myung Hoon; Kim, Seok Kwun

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Original Article

Journal of the Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons 2009;36(2):127-134.
Published online March 1, 2009.

A Study for the Biologic Changes and Viability of Adipose Tissue in Cryopreserved Fat Graft.

Jae Jeong Han, Yong Seok Kwon, Jang Ho Lee, Jung Heo, Keun Cheol Lee, Myung Hoon Kim, Seok Kwun Kim

Department of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, College of Medicine, Dong-A University, Busan, Korea. sgkim1@dau.ac.kr

Abstract

PURPOSE
Adipose tissue injection as a free graft for the correction of soft-tissue deficiency or depression deformity is a widespread procedure in plastic surgery. This study is to analyze the changes and viability of cryopreserved adipose tissue and to find out efficient long-term storage period. METHODS: After centrifugation of aspirated abdominal tissues, 10mL of packed Adipose tissue were freezed at -20degrees C. For 2, 4, 6, 8 months, each frozen samples were taken and injected into scalp of SCID mice. After 15 weeks, injected Adipose tissue were sampled and analyzed at 2 months interval. We compared and analyzed each group about the weight of the injected fat, histologic impressions, activity of mitochondria, size of a fat cell and rate of survival.
RESULTS
Significant weight changes were observed in cryopreservation for 2 months(p<0.05). Histologic changes were observed, independent of the freezing period with H-E stain. Among cryopreservations for 2, 4, 6 months, no significant change were observed. The reduction of mitochondrial enzymatic activity was observed independent of time interval but activity of mitochondrial dehydrogenase was reduced less than 50% in MTT assay.
CONCLUSION
Freezing at -20degrees C for 6 months has no adverse effect to Adipose tissue, but fragile adipocytes, damaged cell membrane during harvesting procedure, were disrupted within 1-2 month and the maximum volume reduction were followed less than 2 months. These results demonstrate that tissue preparation cells without membrane damage have the greatest viability level and cryopreservation less than 2 months has great volume effect and cryopreservation for 6 months has stable volume effect.

Keywords: Adipose tissue injection; Cryopreservation; Viability

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