Aesthetic and therapeutic outcome of fat grafting for localized Scleroderma treatment: From basic study to clinical application
Chenyu Wang, Ruijia Dong, Xiao Long, Xiaojun Wang
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Localized scleroderma (LoS) is a rare autoimmune disease characterized by skin fibrosis and subcutaneous tissue atrophy, resulting in aesthetic impairment on patients. Fat grafting has been used to treat LoS patients, achieving aesthetic and therapeutic improvement. AIMS: This article summarized the epidemiology and pathophysiology of LoS and the current progress and thorny questions of basic and clinical research on fat grafting treating LoS. METHODS: The literature of the last 20 years concerning fat grafting of treating LoS was reviewed. RESULTS: Fat grafting has been proved to produce aesthetic and therapeutic outcomes on LoS patients, including the improvement of soft tissue atrophy, skin fibrosis and pigmentation. Due to the inflammatory microenvironment of scleroderma, however, fat grafting still faces many difficulties, such as low fat retention. Novel fat grafting methods in order to supplement the deficiency of adipose-derived stem cells and improve fat retention in LoS groups have been proposed whose effectiveness and feasibility is still needed further study. CONCLUSION: Currently, fat grafting has been regarded as an effective treatment with a combination of aesthetic and therapeutic outcomes on LoS patients.