Timing of Autologous Fat Grafting in Implant-Based Breast Reconstruction: Best Practices Based on Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Fat grafting is commonly undertaken as a third-stage procedure in patients with staged implant-based breast reconstruction (IBR). However, fat grafting per- formed during second-stage expander/implant exchange provides faster results without an additional procedure and associated risks (Patel et al., 2020). We previously demonstrated that fat grafting during second-stage expander/implant exchange did not increase clinical compli- cations (Patel et al., 2020). As a corollary, this study investigates patients' satisfaction with second- versus third-stage fat grafting to help establish a set of best practices for the timing of fat grafting in such patients.