BACKGROUND It is increasingly common for patients to request that multiple cosmetic procedures be performed during a single operation. The advantages of combined procedures include a single recovery period, reduced surgery costs, and faster patient gratification. Traditional surgical thinking, however, has favored the performance of some procedures individually in an effort to decrease complica...

BACKGROUND Massive weight loss patients often have significant upper midline abdominal fullness that contributes to the overall abdominal girth. This region frequently is not adequately treated with conventional abdominoplasty techniques. OBJECTIVE The author used a fleur-de-lis pattern when performing a full abdominoplasty or circumferential abdominoplasty. The technical refinements of this ...

BACKGROUND Abdominoplasty is a common cosmetic procedure; nerve injury is an underexplored risk of the procedure. OBJECTIVE The authors review existing literature to examine the incidence and treatment of nerve injuries after abdominoplasty procedures and provide a treatment algorithm based on their results. METHODS A search of the literature on MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of...

BACKGROUND It is well known that improving postoperative pain control in plastic surgery procedures leads to earlier mobilization, shortened hospital stay, reduced hospital costs, and increased patient satisfaction. OBJECTIVE The authors evaluate the use of abdominal field block injections with liposomal bupivicaine (Exparel; Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Inc, San Diego, California) in postoperativ...

BACKGROUND Standard abdominoplasty rectus plication techniques may not suffice for severe cases of rectus diastasis. In the authors' experience, prosthetic mesh facilitates the repair of severe rectus diastasis with or without concomitant ventral hernias. METHODS A retrospective review of all abdominal wall surgery patients treated in the past 8 years by the senior author (G.A.D.) was perform...

BACKGROUND There is a select group of women for whom mini-abdominoplasty techniques combined with 3-dimensional liposculpture and fat grafting can effectively correct postpartum deformities. OBJECTIVE The authors describe a multilayer and 360-degree approach, dynamic definition mini-abdominoplasty (DDM), to create athletic definition and contour and to restore a feminine appearance postpartum...

The purpose of this study is to report an experimental model to evaluate several modalities of sensibility and to map the areas of the abdominal wall with decreased sensibility after abdominoplasty. Patients were divided in two groups: in the control group, patients had no previous abdominal incisions and patients of the experimental group had been undergone abdominoplasty. The sensibility eval...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of the dissection technique on outcomes and complications after a full abdominoplasty, comparing 2 different techniques used to raise the abdominal flap: the steel scalpel and the diathermocoagulation device on coagulation mode. METHODS A prospective study was performed at a single center from January 2009 to December 2011 of pat...

BACKGROUND The transversus abdominis plane block is a promising approach to the provision of postoperative analgesia following abdominal incision. This effective method blocks the sensory nerve supply to the anterior abdominal wall. The authors evaluated its analgesic efficacy over the first 12 postoperative hours after abdominoplasty with liposculpture in a randomized, controlled, double-blind...

BACKGROUND The reverse abdominoplasty is an effective technique for selected patients seeking treatment for upper abdominal tissue excess and laxity. Specifically, the procedure is particularly effective in patients who have previously undergone conventional abdominoplasty or liposuction and have residual upper abdominal contour problems. It is a versatile technique that may be combined with a ...