Director of Cosmetic Surgery,

University of Illinois Chicago

Department  of Dermatology

Oakbrook Center Mall

Oak Brook, Illinois

(630) 928-0240

Jeffrey  Melton, M.D., S.C.,

link to us

drmelton.com

Ultrasonic liposuction, or Ultrasonic Assisted Liposuction (UAL), is a technique where ultrasound energy is applied to the fat via the suction instrument.  The ulltrasound energy breaks up and or melts the fat before it is suctioned out. 

Ultrasonic assited liposuction has received a lot of interest.  Certainly it seems that someday it would be possible to improve liposuction technique by utilizing some sort of energy at the instrument tip to improve the speed of the procedure or some other aspect of it. 

However, at this time ultrasonic-assisted liposuction has some drawbacks which do not appear to be outweighed by the benefits (certainly not all physicians would agree on this).  The energy which is applied has caused some undesirable side efects, including burns and other trauma on the skin and elsewhere. Therefore, the use of ultrasound in liposuction remains somewhat controversial.   We do not perform ultrasonic liposuction. 

Early on, lasers were very much promoted for the treatment of virtually anything involving the skin.  However, after a few years it became clear that for each type of laser, the therapeutic window (i.e., that which it does well) was very small, maybe only one disease, or one type of skin problem per laser.  (for some early lasers, the window was zero, although it took a while for everybody to figure that out).  After a number of years (about 25), some lasers finally evolved that were (and are) clearly fantastic for a particular skin problem, and this trend continues. 

Perhaps lasers, ultrasound,  or some other advance will bring about the third major advance in liposuction, whatever it may be, but I do not think we are there yet, at least not with ultrasonic liposuction in its current forms.