Liposuction: a review of principles and techniques

For one of the most commonly performed aesthetic procedures, liposuction has a somewhat mixed reputation. This may result from suboptimal technical comprehension and/or poor patient selection. It has also attracted strong commercial pressure from manufacturers of new, sometimes less assiduously-evaluated, technologies. Liposuction is not a panacea for obesity and patients are not always cognisant of this. On the other hand, it can produce highly satisfactory outcomes for well-selected patients and anatomical areas when performed by appropriately-trained operators using properly selected technologies. Although introduced by the Europeans, liposuction was enthusiastically adopted by the North Americans, yet seems to have excited little scientific interest in the UK, despite widespread use. Given the numerous techniques and recent advances, a review may be timely.