Dr. Patronella’s Advanced Technique to Improve Butt Lift-Lower Body Lift Results

Posted June 28, 2024 in Body Lift, Buttock Lift, True Form Body Contouring®

By Dr. Chris Patronella

One of my favorite procedures in addition to abdominoplasty, the True Form Tummy Tuck®, is something called a lower body lift, also known as a buttock lift. It’s a procedure whereby the extra loose skin in the area above the buttocks is removed, and the buttock and outer thigh area is lifted as well. This can be a very powerful procedure to improve the overall body contour.

One of the pitfalls of the procedure, historically, is that it tended to flatten the hips, as you can see in the video back view photo of this patient who came to my office many years ago. So I began thinking about what I could do to improve the results of this buttock lift surgery.

I achieved that by developing what’s technically known as an adipofascial autologous graft. This is a patient’s own tissue, which is transferred into the upper buttock and hip area so that the hip will not flatten. I’m going to show this to you in a patient for whom I performed the procedure about a year ago.

I like a very harmonious, proportionate look when I’m doing body contouring surgery. For that reason, I routinely tend to treat the areas adjacent to the abdomen. The patient featured in the video has an excessive accumulation of fat in the hip and waist regionas well as the tummy. And there’s also loose skin in that area that I found when examining the patient.

In the one-quarter back view after her surgery, you can see the hip projection is maintained while also smoothing out the area of the waist above it as well as the buttock and outer thigh below it. The tissue flap that I advance really does a nice job of maintaining that round projection we are accustomed to seeing in an elegant, well-proportioned female body.

In the same view on the opposite side, you can see the fat grafting and the flap that is performed filled out the buttocks nicely. In the back view, the waist is more narrow, but the hip has maintained its projection. The buttock appears more rounded due to the tissue that I transferred down into the buttock to create that more rounded, filled-out effect in both the upper and lower buttock.

The buttock lift, or lower body lift is a procedure that I do very frequently several times a week. It’s one that has grown and evolved over the years as I have developed techniques to improve the aesthetic outcomes patients receive. It’s a much better procedure in my hands today compared to how I learned it when I trained as a plastic surgeon. It’s yet another example of advancing the art and science of plastic surgery by thinking a little bit outside-the-box.