Evaluating the Role of Rectus Abdominis Fat Transfer (RAFT) in Improving Muscle Thickness: Does it Really Work? A 12-Month Follow-Up Cohort Study

BackgroundLooking for an adequate solution for those patients who desire abdominal definition, but are not candidates for liposuction alone, Danilla developed a technique, using selective fat grafting into the rectus abdominis (RAFT) to increase the muscle volume in addition to selective liposuction and abdominoplasty to provide an optimal body contouring.ObjectiveTo determine whether intramuscular fat grafting in the rectus abdominis muscles leads to an increase in muscle thickness after one year.MethodsThis is a prospective cohort study, from a single center, carried out over 24 months (October 2021-September 2023). Sixty-two patients who underwent lipoabdominoplasty and RAFT, had their rectus abdominis cross section measured by ultrasound pre- and 12 months postoperatively. To compare the muscle thickness, a paired t-test statistic was used. A p-value of 0.05 was considered statistically significant (IBM SPSS Statistics V26).ResultsAfter 1 year, all 62 patients showed an increase in the size of the rectus muscle cross section, although only 58 (94%) had fat identifiable in the US. Preoperatively, the mean muscle cross-sectional size was 1, 4 cm. After RAFT, overall mean muscle cross section was 2, 3 cm (0, 9 cm/66.9% increase). When stratified into groups with and without identifiable fat, the group in which the graft remained showed greater increase than the group with no visible fat (69, 9% vs 19,6%).ConclusionThe RAFT provided a significant increase in the muscle cross section in most cases after 1 year. The presence of fat is related to a statistically significant increase in the muscle compartment (pack).Level of Evidence IIThis journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.