The February 2010 issue of Allure magazine had a great article addressing new developments in breast implant technology. One of these was "natural breast augmentation" using fat transfer or liposculpture in which the patent's own fat is injected directly into the breast. This is a technique that has only been in use in larger numbers for a few years and I have many reservations.  There are no long-term studies on the safety of fat transfer to the breasts.  Fat is a hormonally active substance and as the development breast cancer is known to be influenced in part by hormones, it seems premature to place a tissue that will alter the local hormonal environment into susceptible breast tissue without full-knowledge of its effects.  Fat transfer has been well-studied in Japan and it appears to be safe in that population in these relatively short-term studies. This data is not easily transferrable to an American patient population. Not only do Japanese women have smaller breasts (and, thus, require less fat to be injected), they have a much lower incidence of breast cancer than American woman (5 times less in some studies). This may be related to dietary, environmental or genetic differences.  It is of interest, however, that the incidence of breast cancer among culturally assimilated Japanese-American woman is rapidly increasing.  This may be related to changes in diet or other influences.  It is difficult, therefore, in my opinion, to extrapolate a safety profile for American woman from the experience in Japan. Until long-term studies have been done on American women, I will not be employing fat transfer to perform breast augmentation in my practice.