Safety of Lipoabdominoplasty Versus Abdominoplasty: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

BackgroundLipoabdominoplasty is a powerful operation to maintain a youthful physique for aging people, improve body contouring, and remove excess skin caused by massive weight loss. Nonetheless, it is controversial to combine abdominoplasty and liposuction because of the potential for vascular damage of the abdominal flap and increased complications. The purpose of this article was to determine the complication rates of lipoabdominoplasty compared with traditional abdominoplasty. MethodsPubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases were searched through July of 2018. Study results were analyzed utilizing a fixed random effects model. The outcomes were expressed as relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence interval. Subgroup analyses were conducted based on complications.ResultsOverall, 17 trials enrolling 14,061 adult patients were searched. Of these patients, 577 (4.1%) developed seroma; 113 (0.8%) experienced hematoma; 783 (5.6%) experienced wound infection, dehiscence, or fat necrosis; 35 (0.2%) developed deep venous thrombosis; and 110 (0.7%) experienced scar deformity. A forest plot revealed fewer complications in the lipoabdominoplasty group than in the traditional abdominoplasty group (RR=0.85; 95% CI 0.74-0.97; p=0.017). Subgroup analysis showed that the lipoabdominoplasty group had a lower incidence of hematoma (RR=0.56; 95% CI 0.36-0.86; p=0.009) and seroma (RR=0.69; 95% CI 0.57-0.85; p=0.000).ConclusionsLipoabdominoplasty is a valuable tool to perfect body shape. This meta-analysis showed no evidence that it was associated with higher rates of complications.Level of Evidence IIIThis journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.