Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 26, 2025
Assessment of Viability of Human Fat Injection into Nude Mice with Micro-Computed Tomography
Published on: January 7, 2015
Quantification of Fat Graft Retention in the Translabyrinthine Approach Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging Volumetric
Adam S Vesole1, Scott B Shapiro2, Ravi N Samy1
1Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Objective:
To characterize the viability and volume of autologous free fat grafts over time, determine clinical/patient factors that may affect free fat graft survival and assess the clinical impact of free fat graft survival on patient outcomes in the translabyrinthine approach for lateral skull base tumor resection.
Study Design:
Retrospective chart review.
Setting:
Tertiary neurotologic referral center.
Patients:
Forty-two adult patients who underwent translabyrinthine craniotomy for resection of a lateral skull base tumor with the mastoid defect filled by autologous abdominal fat graft and subsequently underwent more than one postoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the brain.
Interventions:
Mastoid obliteration with abdominal fat after craniotomy, postoperative MRI.
Main Outcome Measures:
Rate of fat graft volume loss, fraction retention of original fat graft volume, initial fat graft volume, time to steady-state fat graft retention, rate of postoperative cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak, and/or pseudomeningocele formation.
Results:
Patients were followed postoperatively with MRI for a mean of 31.6 months with a mean of 3.2 postoperative MRIs per patient. Initial graft size was a mean of 18.7 cm3 with a steady-state fat graft retention of 35.5%. Steady-state graft retention (<5% loss per year) was achieved at a mean of 24.96 months postoperatively. No significant association was found in multivariate regression analysis of clinical factors impact on fat graft retention and CSF leak/pseudomeningocele formation.
Conclusions:
In the use of autologous abdominal free fat graft for filling mastoid defects after translabyrinthine craniotomy, there is a logarithmic decline in fat graft volume over time, reaching steady state in 2 years. Rates of CSF leak or pseudomeningocele formation were not significantly affected by initial volume of the fat graft, rate of fat graft resorption, nor the fraction of original fat graft volume at steady state. In addition, no analyzed clinical factors significantly influenced fat graft retention over time.
More Related Videos
05:37Author Spotlight: A Non-Invasive Tool to Assess and Differentiate Fat Patterns in Liver Using 3D Dixon MRI
Published on: October 20, 2023
13:16Computed Tomography and Optical Imaging of Osteogenesis-angiogenesis Coupling to Assess Integration of Cranial Bone Autografts and Allografts
Published on: December 22, 2015