ATX-101: FDA Approval for Dissolving Fat (?!)

Maybe, I shouldn't have been so quick to disparage injection lipolysis.  Kythera Pharmaceutical's ATX-101 just might prove me wrong.

Back in November 2009, I called attention to the farce of injection lipolysis and mesotherapy, also known as...

• LipoZap
• Lipostabil
• Flabjab
• Lipomelt
• Lipodissolve
• Fat-Away

http://www.pickartplasticsurgeryblog.com/2009/11/whatever-happened-to-lipozap.html

Mesotherapy, injection lipolysis, LipoZap, etc., involved injecting bile acids beneath the skin to melt fat--or at least that was the hope.  Compelling advertising enabled LipoZap centers to spring up throughout the United States and Europe.  As is so often the case, clever marketing preceded any clever science.  Without appropriate testing for safety and efficacy, many patients were swindled, and some were seriously harmed.

Enter Kythera Pharmaceuticals.  Led by executives and researchers from the established biotechnology industry (such as Amgen and Allergan), Kythera seems grounded in science and safety.  ATX-101 is Kythera's fat buster.  Preliminary trials have been completed for dissolving lipomas--benign fatty tumors, affecting 2% of the population, which can be painful and cosmetically displeasing.

The traditional treatment for lipomas has always been surgical excision.  However, surgery always entails risks, such as scarring, infection, damage to critical structures like nerves, etc.  The hope is that ATX-101 will significantly reduce the size or eliminate lipomas without the need for surgery.

If ATX-101 were to work on lipomas, then I don't see why it shouldn't work on those stubborn fat deposits that we have inherited from our parents.  Analogous to current lipoma treatments, stubborn fat is now removed with surgery--liposuction.  Wouldn't it be nice to sign up for a few injections rather than a surgical procedure (albeit a minor one)?