Effectivenss and adverse effect of cryolipolysis in fat reduction : systemic review

Abstract

Background/Objective: Obesity becomes an important issue in public health nowadays. The prevalence and incidence of obesity are in upward trend, which posts great burden of morbidity and mortality to the community. Obesity causes various complications leading not only to huge economic burden in medical sector and the community, but also to the individual family. Apart from the mainstay of weight management including healthy lifestyle (i.e. healthy dietary practice and regular physical workout), people try various methods to achieve weight loss. There are many cosmetic procedures claimed to be effective to serve this purpose, liposuction is believed to be the most popular procedure in fat reduction. However, we noted news about death and other complications reported after received liposuction procedures in recent years. Regarding new advance, cryolipolysis is a new and noninvasive technique, claimed to be effective even in single treatment and safe, to reduce body fat especially localized fat. If supporting evidences are valid, people may have safer choice of fat reduction in terms of cosmetic procedures.

Methods: A systemic review was performed by literature searching from various database including PubMed, Google Scholar, Google and Yahoo for the effectiveness and adverse effects of cryolipolysis in fat reduction to select the relevant Journals and articles in English that talk about the theme up to May 2015.

Results/Findings: In this study, all articles identified in available database were included for review. A total of 14 relevant studies, consisting 12 case-control studies and 2 retrospective studies, were included in this review. Overall, cryolipolysis is effective in fat reduction with tolerable side effect, and no long lasting skin problem or nerve damage was reported.

Conclusions: The increasing popularity of the cosmetic procedure nowadays poses public concern on the effectiveness and safety of the procedures. This project reviewed the effectiveness and adverse effect of the noninvasive procedure cryolipolysis in fat reduction. All preclinical and clinical trials showed promising effects but the sample sizes in the trials identified were small, and only short follow-up period of the outcome and adverse effect after the procedure. In this regards, a further large scale case control study should be performed in future to confirm the effectiveness and adverse effect of cryolipolysis in fat reduction. Nevertheless, healthy lifestyle including healthy eating and regular physical workout remains the mainstay of intervention in combating obesity and should be emphasized in public health education.