Avoid Wells Johnson Cannister With One BBL

Fat Grafting and the Closed Loop

A Brazilian butt lift takes fat by liposuction and returns it as fat grafting to the buttock. The graft is placed over the glute, in the subcutaneous tissue, not in the muscle. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons describes buttock augmentation with a patient's own fat as a change in size and shape. That change includes projection and the hip. The photograph is a 26-year-old woman before surgery and six months after a buttock enhancement, with reshaping of the hips and the buttocks. It records a shape result. It is not a picture of an infected graft, and it is not a picture of a canister.

The harvested fat is moved into a sterile canister through a closed loop, then returned to the buttock in small aliquots of 0.5 to 1.0 cc. The small aliquot is how the fat is given a chance to re-establish blood flow. A closed loop means the fat is collected, processed, and injected without being opened to the room. What BBL means, as that transfer, is a separate definition from the container the fat sits in.

The aliquot is small on purpose. A large deposit has a center that sits far from the tissue around it. A pack of 0.5 to 1.0 cc is the size used so the fat can pick up a blood supply. That size does not change the plane. The graft still sits over the glute, in the subcutaneous tissue, not in the muscle. It also does not choose the projection or the hip. Those are the shape marks. The aliquot is only how the fat is portioned once the shape has been chosen.

Opening the fat to the room would undo the closed loop. The loop is the tubing, the closed canister, and the return tubing. Washing happens inside that canister, with an antibiotic solution, without pouring the fat out. If the canister has to be opened to rinse the fat, or to move it into another container by hand, the fat meets the room. That exposure is the contamination the loop is built to avoid.

Why a Contaminated Graft Is Hard to Drain

Infection of the graft, if the fat was contaminated, is one of the more serious complications. The fat is sitting in small packs of 0.5 to 1.0 cc. If 1000 cc has been injected, that is 1000 to 2000 separate sites that would have to be drained. The range is the same 0.5 to 1.0 cc used for the aliquot: 1000 divided by 1.0 is 1000 sites, and 1000 divided by 0.5 is 2000 sites.

A patient who had a BBL with another surgeon was seen at a local hospital, nearly unconscious. She required four separate incisions and drainages, and five drainages performed by interventional radiology. She survived. Her buttock contour was severely compromised. That case is why contamination is treated as serious. It is not presented as proof that one brand of canister caused her infection.

One drained collection would be a different operation from the one she had. Four incisions and drainages in the operating room, plus five drainages by interventional radiology, follow from fat that was scattered in small packs. Each pack can become its own site. The 1000 cc example is written as 1000 to 2000 sites for that reason, not as a single pocket of fluid. After she survived, the remaining problem named here is the buttock contour, which was severely compromised.

Why Avoid Wells Johnson Cannister

The reason to avoid Wells Johnson Cannister is the lining. After a couple of uses the lining can show discoloration and breaks. A break in the lining could, in theory, leave a closed space that sterilization does not reach. Until that early degradation of the lining is corrected, patients are told to keep this canister out of a BBL. The concern is described as theoretical. It is not a counted infection rate.

Discoloration and a break are the findings described after a couple of uses. A lining that looks intact on the first use can still be the lining that cracks later. The theoretical problem is a space inside a crack that the sterilizer does not enter, so a later case could meet a canister that was not fully sterile. That possibility is why the brand is left unused. It is not a report that every cracked lining has already caused an infection.

How the Closed Loop Moves the Fat

A sterile cannula sucks the fat into tubing, and the tubing carries it to a sterile collection canister. The fat is washed with an antibiotic solution without opening the canister. After the fluid and the fat have settled into layers, the fluid is drained, or a filter removes it. Once the fat is compacted, it is injected back through tubing like the tubing that collected it. In that path the fat is not exposed to outside air.

Keeping the canister closed also shortens the work. Collection, washing, and injection can be done so the fat is outside the body for 30 minutes. A conventional syringe system is described as taking an hour or two. The 30 minutes is a limit on time out of the body. It is not a claim that every fat cell survives, and it is not a session schedule for the patient afterward.

The shape is chosen before the fat is placed, and the cities where these operations are done are a separate logistics question. The canister does not choose the hip or the projection. It only has to hold the fat without opening it to the room. A lining that fails that job is the reason given for leaving one brand unused.

The syringe comparison is only about time and exposure. A conventional syringe system is the path described as taking an hour or two, because the fat is handled between syringes. Handling between syringes is exposure to the room. The closed loop is the alternative written here: tubing in, wash inside the canister, tubing back out, with the fat outside the body for 30 minutes. Neither path chooses how wide the hip is, or how far the buttock projects.

Before the fat is collected, the lining is the part that has to still be a wall. Discoloration or a crack means that canister is not the one used for the case. The antibiotic wash, the wait for the layers to settle, and the return through tubing all assume the wall stayed closed. A break in the wall means the loop is open even if the lid was never taken off. Air in that crack is the pocket that may miss sterilization.

The 1000 cc figure is an example of the arithmetic, not a volume assigned to every patient. A smaller graft has fewer packs, and a larger graft has more, at the same 0.5 to 1.0 cc size. The hospital case is the picture of what scattered packs can require: repeated drainage, then a contour that was severely compromised. The six-month photograph is a different record. It dates a shape result for the hips and the buttocks. It does not date an infection, and it does not show how long the fat was outside the body.

What the Lining Has to Do

A sterile canister needs a lining that stays intact, so the wall can act as a barrier to contaminants. If the lining is brittle or prone to cracking, air pockets can form, and those pockets may compromise sterilization. That is the same theoretical concern named for the discolored, broken lining. A cracked lining is why the warning is to avoid Wells Johnson Cannister.