FOX 5 Special: Fabulous Fat

ATLANTA (MyFOX ATLANTA) - One plastic surgery procedure uses a woman's fat to help give women a breast enhancement. The procedure is cutting edge, but is it ready for prime time?

Fat transfers are already being used in facial and hand rejuvenation, but a handful of plastic surgeons are now harvesting a woman's fat to rebuild her breasts.

Trudy Davies said the procedure was a godsend, because it made her feel whole again. The Roswell image consultant was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer two years ago.

"It's like one minute your life is one way, and the next, it is completely turned upside down. You know, having somebody look at you and say, "This isn't good. This is not good,'" said Davies.

Davies was a single mother with two teenage sons when she went through chemotherapy. The cancer treatment left the Roswell woman temporarily bald. Davies went on to undergo a mastectomy and then radiation.

The radiation killed off the leftover cancer cells, but left the skin on Davies' chest so hard and tight, several plastic surgeons told her they just didn't think they could rebuild her breast.

Davies met Dr. James Namnoum, an Atlanta plastic surgeon with the breakthrough idea to use Davies' own fat cells to heal the skin on her chest.

"What I'm hoping is that we can take someone who's been radiated and make them more like somebody who has not been radiated and that is a huge change," said Dr. Namnoum.

"I said, 'All I want to do is look good in clothes again,' and he said, 'I want you to look good out of clothes!' and he was the only doctor who'd acted at that point like that was even an option," said Davies.

Dr. Namnoum told Davies he wanted to try something so new by taking the fat from her thighs and use it to revitalize her damaged breast tissue. Davies was told the procedure would take a lot of time and a big commitment.

For weeks, Davies had to wear a breast suction device called the Brava for four to six hours a day to stretch her tightened chest wall.

Then, Dr. Namnoum removed two large syringes of fat from Davies' thighs and injected them into her chest wall. The procedure was repeated three times over several months.

"We were repairing, curing if you will, what the radiation had done to the skin of the chest," said Dr. Namnoum.

Once ready, Davies had reconstructive surgery and had implant put in.

Dr. Namnoum said the procedure could one day reshape plastic surgery but not yet, because no one knows how much fat actually survives the transfer. There is a small chance injecting fat into a healthy woman's breast tissue could actually raise her risk of breast cancer.

"I couldn't endorse this as a routine method for breast augmentation. I think there are centers that are studying this, they'll be cautious and careful about it. They will screen patients very carefully and will follow them very carefully," said Dr. Namnoum.

Even with the fat, Davies still needed an implant so her new breast would match her remaining breast. but she said the fat injections gave her breast a much more natural look.

Davies said the procedure allowed her to put breast cancer behind her.

The Roswell woman was recently married. "It's like a second chance. I'm thankful and thank God for the way it turned out," Davies said.

The fat grafting technique is being tested in a small clinical trial being done in Miami, Boston and Jackson, Mississippi.