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Craig A. Vander Kolk, M.D., Plastic surgeon with the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery center, Weinberg Center for Women’s Health & Medicine at Mercy Medical Center

Dr. Craig Vander Kolk, Plastic And Reconstructive Surgery At Mercy, Discusses Using Patient's Own Tissue To Treat Facial Wrinkling

As people age, the fatty tissue that helps one's face look younger disappears.

Tess Bardo said she's getting the procedure done to eliminate looking tired all the time.

"Just to have the extra pouch that's here removed. He's going to take that, remove that and just put in the extra fat around here," she said.

Rather than Botox or Restalyn, Bardo had her own fat injected under her eyes.

"Pretty much everything we do is related to fat. If we do eyelid surgery, we're going to remove some fat. If we're going to do a facelift, we're going to take out some fat in the neck," said plastic surgeon Dr. Craig Vander Kolk of Mercy Medical Center's Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery department.

"It's a revolutionary process. Rather than just removing it and getting whatever result is from that, we actually can now process it and use it to augment and improve the overall result for each patient," he said.

Dr. Vander Kolk said he looks at fat as "the future."

"As new technology that allows us to do many new procedures," he said.

In the future, human fat could be used for larger procedures, such as injecting and sculpting the body or doing anything from chin and cheek implants, breast augmentation or possibly replacing silicone implants.

"We expect that at least 50 percent to 60, 70 percent of the fat will survive, and once it survives, it's there forever, essentially," he said. "Everybody can use a little bit of fat to be removed -- well, almost everybody. And putting it where you want to put it allows you a lot more flexibility."

Dr. Vander Kolk noted that while the fat injection may cost a little more up front than other injectibles, they last longer. To learn more, watch Dr. Vander Kolk discuss this topic in depth on WBAL-TV11's "The Woman's Doctor" at http://www.wbaltv.com/womansdoctor/18415328/detail.html.