Abdominoplasty or also more popularly known as tummy tuck is a procedure where we remove the excess abdominal skin. Sometimes we combine this procedure with rectus sheath plication, when we reduce the laxity of the abdominal muscle after multiple pregnancies by suturing the rectus sheath layer together. The effect will be like wearing a permanent corset where you will get a shapely abdomen. Liposuction, on the other hand, is a procedure when we use cannulas to suck out unwanted adipose (fatty) tissues.
Both of these procedures can either be performed separately or in combination during a surgery, based on the Plastic Surgeon assessment. This beg the question, how do we decide on which procedure is more suitable then?
Abdominoplasty is generally indicated when you have excess skin. This usually happens after multiple pregnancies or massive weight loss. If the abdomen has too much excess skin, doing a liposuction on these areas will only aggravate the skin laxity, instead of improving them. On the contrary, if you have not much skin laxity, but a localized collection of unwanted fat in certain areas such as the saddle bag, arms or thighs, then liposuction will be more suitable.
It also very important to note that, if both of these procedures are not a short-cut to losing weight. If let say, a patient with a BMI of 35 or above wants to reduce it to less than 30, other treatment modalities such as sleeve gastrectomy or intra-gastric balloon insertion are more appropriate.
There are several different types of Abdominoplasty cosmetic surgery techniques than we can do such as the Mini-Abdominoplasty, Total Abdominoplasty with New Umbilicus creation, Circumferential Abdominoplasty or Fleur-de-lis Abdominoplasty. Sometimes we can combine it with aesthetic procedures such as Breast Augmentation, Rhinoplasty, Facelift or Arm lift during then same anaesthesia time.
Similarly, for liposuction in our aesthetic clinic, we use a variety equpments from LASER Liposuction, to VASER, power-assisted or water-jet liposuction.
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