Fatal Complications of Aesthetic Techniques: The Gluteal Region

Cosmetic procedures are common and utilize many techniques to obtain aesthetically good outcomes for patient satisfaction with acceptable safety standards. Cosmetic procedures that involve the gluteal region are becoming increasingly popular as various procedures can target the gluteal region such as liposuction, tumescent liposuction, cosmetic filler injections, autologous fat transfer, depot drug delivery, and implants. Complications of cosmetic gluteal procedures can be localized or systemic with systemic complications being responsible for most deaths. These reported systemic complications include sepsis, thromboembolism, fat embolism with or without fat embolism syndrome, macroscopic fat embolism, anesthesia-related and blood volume abnormalities. We herein report 10 deaths due to elective gluteal cosmetic procedures. Autologous fat transfer (fat grafting, lipoinjection) following liposuction resulted in 8 of 10 fatal outcomes of the gluteal aesthetic procedures. A comprehensive discussion of gluteal anatomy, gluteal contouring procedures, and the approach to such cases is presented along with the autopsy findings of the reported cases.