M.D. A Dermdigest Lecture Liposuction, introduced into the United States by the French, has become the most popular form of cosmetic or restorative surgery. The procedure makes it possible for thousands of people to rid themselves of saddlebags and love handles that no amount of exercise will eliminate. Men and women are finding that liposuction offers the best approach to achieving the kind of slim and trim appearance so valued by our fitness-oriented society.
Liposuction removes inches rather than pounds.
The ideal candidates for the procedure are discrete areas of disproportionate fat deposits. The procedure does not provide a remedy for obesity, nor can it make heavy people look thin. Doctors point out, however, that the combination of liposuction and an adequate fitness program can produce fantastic results. An important breakthrough which was pioneered by Jeffrey Klein, M.D., of San Juan Capistrano, California, who is Assistant Clinical Professor at the Orange County Medical Center in Irvine, has made liposuction safer, easier, more comfortable, and less expensive. Dr. Klein's method, which relies upon the injection of relatively large volumes of dilute anesthetic solution into the fatty tissue to be treated, is called the tumescent technique.