Fun with the Team in SoCal!

Laguna Beach is the home of the Pageant of the Masters, one of the most unique art experiences in the entire world! The Pageant takes place in an outdoor amphitheater (the performances have been rained out only three times in its 90 years of existence) with a professional orchestra and narrator.

Volunteers, who work many months preparing for the performances, produce faithful re-creations of classical and contemporary art pieces, with real people posing to look exactly like their counterparts in original art works. The 2022 production is entitled “Wonderful World” and allowed us to experience great art from celebrated museums around the globe. We enjoyed the accompanying Festival of the Arts in the afternoon and dinner at the Terra Laguna Beach on the Pageant grounds prior to the show. The first festival took place in 1932, in which a group of local artists joined to sell original art along Laguna’s main street. The first “living pictures” concept began in 1933 and has evolved into this Southern California art experience, which is enjoyed by tourists from around the globe every summer.
This past week we also celebrated a staff appreciation day.

We spent an evening cruising the Newport Beach Harbor in Duffy boats with our OCPS staff and were joined by our office manager from Salisbury Plastic Surgery, Kristen Larocque. We were able to enjoy the best of Newport Beach with a sunset cruise, fabulous food and a few glasses of wine with the people for whom we are so grateful for making our lives work so smoothly – what better way to admire Newport Beach’s lively waterfront, beautiful homes, and stunning islands than from the water? Thank you, staff!

Is fat grafting the breasts for augmentation a good idea?

Fat harvested from liposuction can be transferred to various places on the body to fill defects, accentuate curves and augment butts and breasts. The actual procedure of fat grafting to the breasts is a safe procedure. However, I am still hesitant to recommend fat grafting as an equivalent alternative to traditional implant based breast augmentation to my patients. There are three main reasons why I would think twice about injecting fat into a breast.

1. Fat grafting in a breast can affect screening mammography (imaging used to detect breast cancer). Injected fat can lead to the development of calcifications that can confuse radiologists and breast surgeons screening for breast cancer. The calcifications can lead to unnecessary breast biopsies and more frequent imaging.

2. Fat resorption is not predictable. Only 30%-60% of the fat injected into a breast will survive. Some of the fat cells that do not survive will be absorbed and processed appropriately but others can form permanent oil cysts within the breasts that cause an unnatural look and feel. The cosmetic outcome can be compromised by uneven, asymmetric fat resorption even when the operation is performed perfectly.

3. Stem cells. When fat is harvested from various areas of the body during liposuction we inevitably harvest stem cells too. Those stem cells are also injected into the breasts and have a currently unknown effect on the breast gland itself. While speculation that the effect of stem cells on a breast gland may be safe or harmless the fact remains that we do not know for sure. If there is a possibility that the stem cells could induce breast cancer, why take that risk? We simply do not have enough information on the long-term consequences of fat injection into the breast.

If you want to see if you can have any part of your body improved, contact us for a consultation:

For CA, please call 949-888-9700 or visit www.orangecountyplasticsurgery.com
Or for MA location, call 508-755-4825 or visit www.salisburyps.com
You can write to
Dr. Compoginis at Contact Us Form
Dr. Bunkis at Contact Us Form
or Dr. Ekstrom at mds@salisburyps.com