Background and Objective:

Liposuction techniques have undergone several variations in the passage of time; however we note that the aesthetic results in terms of naturalness in the abdomen sometimes are not the best despite technological support and new surgical techniques, because the abdomen, being an area that presents specific characteristics in its different areas, requires special treatment by zones.

Our aim is to demonstrate by imaging the different thickness of the subcutaneous cellular tissue in the abdomen, as well as to propose new aesthetic subunits of the abdomen according to the findings, as it bases on the preoperative planning of abdominal liposuction.

Methods:

A series of 14 patients were evaluated using soft tissue abdominal ultrasonography to measure the thickness of the subcutaneous cellular tissue in 3 points of the lateral area and 3 points of the medial zone previously established, in order to demonstrate if there are statistically significant differences between them.

Results:

Statistical analysis showed that there are statistically significant differences regarding the thickness of the subcutaneous tissue between the medial abdomen (points 4,5 y 6) compared to lateral area (points 1,2 y 3) with a ratio of 2:1, as well as between the points 1 and 2 compared to points 4 and 5; 1 and 2 compared to point 3; 4 and 5 compared to point 6; and point 3 compared to point 6.

For these differences it is proposed to divide the abdomen into medial and lateral areas with their aesthetic subunits according to their morphological characteristics (thickness of the subcutaneous cellular tissue). Thus, according to Pearson's correlation, this difference between the medial and lateral areas of the abdomen is not correlated with the patient's weight or age, since there is always a difference in the thickness of adipose tissue between the lateral and medial areas of the abdomen.

Conclusions:

There is a different thickness of subcutaneous abdominal cell tissue in the different areas indicated, so we decided to group it into aesthetic subunits according to the different morphological characteristic studied (thickness). We infer that this could help a pre-surgical planning for abdominal liposuction and achieve favorable aesthetic results while retaining the natural relief of the abdomen.

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