Patient died after having buttock fat injected into her face

A woman died after cosmetic surgery when fat from her buttocks was injected into a vein in her face. Rachel Soanes underwent the procedure to plump out her face but died from a 'phenomenally rare' complication when the fat got into her lungs.

The 37-year-old suffered from the condition lupus profondus, which left her with an usually thin face.

She had undergone the plumping treatment twice before and was admitted to St Thomas' Hospital in London as an out-patient on February 12. But shortly after a second re-injection of fat from her buttocks she complained of dizziness and vomited.


Photo from here.

Her oxygen levels plummeted but there was a 50-minute delay before a specialist crash team got her and almost two hours before Miss Soanes was admitted into intensive care, Southwark Coroners' Court heard.

Pathologist Professor Sebastian Lucas said Miss Soanes, of Windsor Road, Norwich, died of a fat tissue embolism - one of the first ever documented cases. This arose from an injection of fat into a vein of her face, he said. The fat travelled into her lungs and resulting in the embolism, or blockage in the arteries.

Prof Lucas said:'Once the fat got into the lungs there was nothing anyone could have done. It happened within seconds. There was no way anyone could dissolve or remove the fat. It was all the way through the lobes of the lungs.'