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Duhan Plastic Surgery Clinic · 두한성형외과 DUHANISM · April 21, 2020
Glabellar wrinkles # Glabellar horizontal wrinkles # Glabellar lifting # Glabella Botox # Glabella plastic surgery # Glabella Botox effects # Glabella surgery # Glabellar straight...
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This page is an English translation of a Korean Naver Blog archive entry. For exact wording and source context, verify against the Korean archive original and the original Naver post.
Clinic: Duhan Plastic Surgery Clinic
Original post date: April 21, 2020
Translated at: April 25, 2026 at 6:17 AM
Medical note: This translation does not guarantee medical accuracy or suitability for treatment decisions.
20 years of fat grafting expertise
What are glabellar wrinkles?!
Glabella fat grafting is a procedure that corrects hollowness between the eyebrows and vertical wrinkles.
Its goal is to correct cases where frowning habits make the overall impression look unpleasant.
Dr. Shin Duhan
Examples of glabellar wrinkles
What are the indications for glabella fat grafting?
■ Deep vertical glabellar wrinkles
■ Hollow glabella
How is fat grafting performed to remove glabellar wrinkles?
For wrinkle correction, a large amount of fat is not needed, so harvesting from the lower abdomen is preferable.
Because anesthesia is administered as local anesthesia (painless sedation anesthesia), there is no pain at all.
Fat is collected into a syringe using a thin liposuction cannula.
The purpose of centrifugation is to remove impurities contained in the fat, increase the concentration of the fat, and improve the fat graft survival rate.
By removing water and oil, almost 100% concentrated fat is obtained.
The fat is transferred again into a thin 1cc syringe and grafted into the desired area.
At our clinic, a self-developed microneedle (micro grafting cannula) is used.
The microneedle is a special grafting cannula used only at our clinic that enables ultra-precise grafting.
When grafting, a subcutaneous tunnel should be created in advance before grafting so that the fat can be placed accurately in the wrinkle area and the wrinkle can be corrected effectively.
The principle of fat grafting is to distribute the fat evenly across the area where it will be grafted so that it does not clump together, while also maximizing the graft survival rate as much as possible.
Let’s take a look at examples of wrinkle correction procedures using fat grafting ~
Glabellar wrinkles
In the case of glabellar wrinkles, fine lines can be treated with fillers such as Restylane or Juvederm, but for deeply sunken inverted V-shaped wrinkles, fat grafting is effective.
Glabellar wrinkles are usually caused by excessive use of the corrugator muscles.
Since surgically removing the corrugator muscle is fundamentally difficult, fat can be placed between the skin and the corrugator muscle to block the muscle’s influence to some extent.
What are the advantages of wrinkle correction with autologous fat grafting?
| The procedure is simple. |
|---|
| Because no foreign substances are used, unlike Restylane or commercial fillers, there is no need to worry about side effects. |
| Because the procedure is performed without making an incision in the skin, there is no need to worry about scars. |
| Because it uses your own tissue, the shape looks natural. |
| There is less swelling and bruising. |
| You can return to daily life immediately after the procedure. |
| Because the fat tissue takes hold, the effects can be maintained for a long time. |
What should you be careful about when using autologous fat grafting for wrinkle correction?
| If you laugh excessively or frown immediately after the procedure, the grafted fat may be compressed and more of it may be absorbed, so be careful. |
|---|
| You should not press on or massage the area immediately after fat grafting. |
| Running exercise can negatively affect fat graft survival, so you should avoid running for about a month. |
How many sessions of fat grafting are needed for glabellar wrinkles?
In the case of glabellar wrinkles, there are various variables in the treatment effect.
If you laugh or frown severely after the procedure, the fat cells will be compressed and the effect will be reduced by half.
For the grafted fat to take hold properly, there must be no external pressure compressing it.
Therefore, after wrinkle fat grafting, facial expression management must be done well for about a month.
For fat grafting to the glabella or nasolabial folds, satisfactory results can usually be achieved with one session and, at most, two sessions on average.
The second procedure is performed 3 to 10 months after the first procedure, and when repeating the procedure, the fat that was harvested and stored at the time of the first fat grafting is thawed and used.
How long do the effects of fat grafting for glabellar wrinkles last?
If the grafted fat takes hold, it is no longer absorbed and remains as your own fat tissue for life, so it is considered one of the safest and most effective methods.
Some people say that fat grafting does not work because much of it is absorbed, but if the procedure is done correctly, satisfactory results can be achieved.
On average, two fat grafting sessions can produce a semi-permanent, satisfying wrinkle improvement effect.
Some people say that fat grafting does not work because much of it is absorbed, but if the procedure is done correctly, satisfactory results can be achieved.
No wrinkle procedure lasts forever.
Wrinkles are a sign of aging, so there is no way to prevent aging altogether, and it is important to make the effects on wrinkles last as long as possible.
Once fat grafting has been done in an area, the tissue beneath the skin is reinforced, so it resists the forces that cause wrinkles and wrinkles do not form easily.
Although there are individual differences, the wrinkle-improvement effect of fat grafting can be said to last longer than that of any other procedure.
What are the side effects of fat grafting for various wrinkle procedures?
Fat grafting is not applied to all wrinkles, so it should be used for wrinkles that can benefit from it. Unlike contour correction, wrinkle procedures are more difficult, so as a rule, they should not be performed by someone with limited experience or by a non-board-certified plastic surgeon.
Fat grafting for wrinkles is one of the procedures that requires a very high level of precision.
To achieve the effect of smoothing the wrinkle line by grafting into the wrinkle, an appropriate amount of fat must be grafted at an appropriate depth and in the right amount after tunneling.
If fat grafting is done poorly, areas other than the wrinkle line may protrude more, and there may be side effects where the area bulges beyond the correction of the wrinkle line. Conversely, there may be cases where there is almost no effect, or cases where the patient suffers from severe swelling immediately after the procedure.
How can overfilled fat grafting side effects be resolved?
Excessively injected fat can be easily removed by suctioning it again within 3 months.
In some cases, if the grafted fat becomes necrotic, calcifies, and hardens, it should also be removed by suction.
However, if fat grafting is performed properly, these problems almost never occur.
If the practitioner lacks sufficient experience with fat grafting and performs it in a way that goes against the principles, or if the amount is misjudged and too much fat is grafted, the grafted area may swell severely, or even after the swelling subsides, the treated area may protrude too much and look unnatural.
This is mainly a problem that occurs when a large amount of fat containing many impurities that has not been properly refined is forcibly injected.
Usually it goes down over time, but if the swelling is too severe, hyaluronidase can be injected into the treated area to reduce the swelling quickly. In cases of excessive fat injection, a microcannula can be inserted to suction out the grafted fat and remove it.
How to perform fat grafting without side effects
As with all surgeries,
fat grafting must also be performed with completely sterilized instruments and materials.
To make sure no fat residue remains inside the used suction cannula or grafting cannula, after the procedure the inside of the suction cannula should be thoroughly cleaned with a brush and sterilized with a steam autoclave, while anesthetics and saline should also be carefully managed so they are not contaminated.
Thorough disinfection and proper management of materials can help prevent bacterial infection and inflammation.
Fat must be refined through several steps so that impurities are completely removed to maximize the effect.
Harvested fat usually contains about 80% impurities, and the actually usable portion is only around 20%.
If the remaining impurities (blood, serum, anesthetic, oil, water, etc.) are not removed, the results will be poor no matter how well the grafting is done.
With a high graft survival rate, the goal is to achieve a satisfying result with as few as one procedure.
Fine fat must be evenly placed in multiple layers, and before that, space must be created in the area where the fat will be grafted so that the previously grafted fat is not compressed by surrounding tissue.
This allows the fat to take hold well without being compressed.
Expressing a soft and natural contour is the key to fat grafting.
To create a soft contour, it is better to graft using a three-dimensional method that distributes the fat evenly across multiple layers.
The grafting locations include the subcutaneous layer, muscle layer, and fascia layer, and the fat should be spread through the tissue as if sowing seeds evenly so that a smooth contour without irregularities can be achieved.
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