Renuvion in Uberlândia, Brazil

It generally follows the recovery guidelines of the associated procedure, such as liposuction, including compression garment use and relative rest in the first weeks; swelling may take a bit longer to resolve due to the skin-tightening effect.

Expected effects in the first weeks are swelling — which usually takes longer to settle than after liposuction alone —, bruising, a tight sensation and patches of skin that are temporarily numb or tingling, from irritation of superficial nerve endings. Complications described in the literature include burns and thermal skin injury, including full-thickness burns, contour irregularity, seroma, bleeding, infection, lasting changes in sensation and changes in skin color. There is also a group of complications specific to the helium gas: besides subcutaneous emphysema — gas collecting under the skin, felt as a crackling under the fingers —, there are reports of gas tracking into body cavities, causing pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum and pneumoperitoneum, and of gas reaching blood vessels. These are rare situations, described in case reports and in the systematic review cited in the references on this page, but they can be serious and require hospital care. Risk rises with application that is too superficial and with thin skin. Shortness of breath, chest pain, swelling that crackles under the fingers, fever, increasing pain, a hardened reddened area, a blister or an open wound are warning signs: any of them calls for immediate contact with the team and, failing that, emergency care. Individual risk is discussed at the consultation, before any decision.

They act at different points. Morpheus8 works from the outside in, with microneedles delivering radiofrequency to the dermis and the superficial fat, over office sessions, without general anesthesia and with little downtime. Renuvion works from the inside out, through a cannula, in the plane just beneath the skin, in a hospital setting and in a single session, almost always alongside liposuction. They therefore suit different scenarios: one addresses texture and mild to moderate laxity with a short recovery, the other addresses the skin envelope of an area that is already being operated on. There is no robust head-to-head comparison between them, and the choice follows the plan rather than the technology itself.

Not in every case — it is indicated for mild to moderate laxity. Significant laxity may require surgical skin removal.

Renuvion and J-Plasma are the same technology: J-Plasma was the system's former name, from the same manufacturer, and Renuvion is the current one. Argon plasma is something else — it uses argon gas and has other medical applications; despite the similar name, it is neither the same technology nor the same indication.

All the technologies in this group deliver energy in the plane between skin and muscle to produce tightening, and differ in the energy source and in how the heat is controlled — helium plasma in Renuvion, bipolar radiofrequency in BodyTite, the platform compared with Renuvion in the retrospective study cited in the references on this page, and laser light in endolaser and laser lipolysis. The other systems on the market work with variants of those same energy sources, and the description of each one comes from its manufacturer, not from this page. Ultrasound used to emulsify fat does not belong to this group: it has a different purpose and can be combined with any of these technologies. There is a practical difference in control: bipolar radiofrequency platforms work with real-time temperature reading and automatic sensor cut-off, whereas in Renuvion control comes from the energy delivered, measured in joules, and from the surgeon's technique. Direct comparative literature between the platforms is scarce and of low level of evidence, and it does not support singling one out as best for every case — Brazilian medical advertising rules also prohibit attributing privileged capability to a device. What changes the outcome is correct indication, skin thickness and technique. When more than one complementary technology is available in the same plan, the choice is made at the consultation, based on skin thickness and quality and on the area to be treated, within the indications of each device's registration with Anvisa.

It is performed through small incisions, usually combined with another procedure such as liposuction.

It's generally performed in a single session, combined with the primary procedure such as liposuction or lipoescultura; it isn't typically repeated as a series.

It can be associated with other body-contouring techniques, depending on individual evaluation; the specific combination is defined case by case during the consultation.

Since it's combined with another procedure, anesthesia generally follows what's chosen for that procedure (local with sedation or general), determined during the pre-operative evaluation. Post-procedure discomfort tends to be similar to that of the associated technique.

The procedure is done under the same anesthesia as the procedure it is combined with — generally general anesthesia, spinal anesthesia with sedation or, for small areas, local anesthesia with sedation, depending on the extent of the procedure and on the assessment made with the anesthesiology team — so the patient is anesthetized while it is applied. In the first days what patients describe is generally not sharp pain but tightness, pulling and warmth across the treated area, on top of the usual discomfort of the associated procedure: the skin is more sensitive to touch and the compression garment feels restrictive. In the neck and submental region study cited in the references on this page, pain was followed to day seven, and the large majority of patients reported no pain to moderate pain over that period; a minority reported severe pain. Analgesia is prescribed by the team and adjusted to the response, with no fixed number of days. Larger areas tend to bother more than small ones. Pain that grows instead of easing, or pain fixed at one single spot, should be reported to the team.

Yes, post-operative swelling is common in the first weeks and can temporarily mask the tightening effect, which becomes more noticeable as the swelling subsides.

It's performed through small incisions, generally the same ones used for the associated liposuction, which tend to result in discreet scars.

No. Renuvion does not remove fat — when there is localized fat to take out, liposuction does that, and the technology comes afterwards, coagulating the subcutaneous tissue and the skin envelope left over the suctioned area. On cellulite: it comes from traction by fibrous septa and from irregularity of the superficial fat, and there is no evidence that this technology improves it — the associated liposuction may in some cases make irregularities of the superficial fat more apparent than before. Stretch marks are scars within the dermis: they do not disappear with tightening and there is no evidence that they improve with the technology. Anyone whose main goal is cellulite or stretch marks usually has an indication for a different approach, assessed at the consultation.

Yes, because it uses thermal energy, there is a possible risk of burns or thermal skin injury; careful technique and monitoring during the procedure aim to reduce this risk, but it should be discussed individually in the consultation.

Skin continues to tighten gradually for a few months after the procedure.

People with pronounced skin laxity are generally not good candidates, since the technology is indicated for mild to moderate cases; this is assessed individually during the consultation.

The tightening achieved tends to be long-lasting, but the skin remains subject to the natural aging process and to weight fluctuations, which can affect the result over time.

Care is private — Dr. Lorena does not work through health insurance. In addition, procedures performed for aesthetic purposes fall outside the mandatory coverage of Brazilian health plans by law. When Renuvion is applied during an operation that has a clinical indication, the same path as that operation applies: private fees, and an attempt at partial coverage of the hospital admission.

No — the SUS does not cover procedures performed for purely aesthetic purposes. When Renuvion is applied within an operation that has a reconstructive indication, the assessment follows that operation's indication. Dr. Lorena is a plastic surgeon appointed by public examination to the Hospital de Clínicas of the Federal University of Uberlândia (HC-UFU) and preceptor of its plastic surgery residency, and she operates on SUS patients there, for reconstructive and functional indications. For those, the route is for the patient to register at the primary care unit (Unidade Básica de Saúde) nearest to her home, be assessed by a doctor there and, if there is an indication, be placed in the regulation queue of her municipality. The surgeon cannot choose who is operated on through the SUS — the order follows the queue and the rules of the system strictly.

We do not publish isolated before-and-after pairs. Resolution 2,336/2023 of the Brazilian Federal Council of Medicine allows results to be demonstrated, but only within a set that also includes unsatisfactory outcomes and the complications described in the literature, across different body types, age ranges and stages of healing, and with no editing of the images (art. 14, II). An isolated pair of photos does not meet those requirements and also implies a guaranteed result, which the same resolution prohibits (art. 11, XII). At the consultation the expected outcome is discussed from your own anatomy — what is reasonable to expect, what is not possible, and what the risks are.

The system ionizes helium gas with radiofrequency and forms a plasma jet at the tip of a thin cannula, introduced through the same small incisions used for liposuction. The cannula travels the plane immediately beneath the dermis, where the plasma heats the subcutaneous tissue, the collagen fibers and the septa that anchor the skin to the deeper layers in a targeted, very rapid way: at the treated point the temperature described in the literature passes 85 °C within a fraction of a second, which coagulates the proteins in those fibers and contracts them. Part of that contraction happens during the application itself and the rest develops over the following weeks, in the tissue remodeling phase, with new collagen forming to a degree that varies from patient to patient — how much of that shows as visible change in the skin can only be judged once the swelling has come down. Helium is the gas that radiofrequency ionizes to form the conductive plasma, and it is the very fast heating and cooling profile that is credited with reducing sideways heat diffusion; that same gas, however, can collect in the tissues, which is why application technique and letting the gas escape are part of the surgical care. How wide an area is treated is set in the surgical plan.

It is not an office treatment. Even when laxity alone is the target, the cannula has to reach the subdermal plane through small incisions — so there are incisions, anesthesia and a surgical team. In selected cases, with little or no fat to remove, the technology can be used on its own; in practice most indications come up alongside liposuction or liposculpture, because the tunnels already made by the liposuction cannula open that same plane. It is a medical procedure, performed by a plastic surgeon in a hospital setting, with an anesthesiology team. Whether it is used alone or combined is decided at the consultation, based on how much fat and how much laxity are present.

Tightening of the treated skin is described in published studies, but the quality of that evidence is uneven. For the neck and submental region there is a study with blinded photographic review in which most patients showed improvement in the appearance of lax skin six months later. For the body, combined with liposuction, the studies are largely case series, with subjective assessment of photographs without standardized measurement, short follow-up, manufacturer funding and author conflicts of interest declared; the systematic review cited in the references on this page concludes that there is no evidence of tightening beyond what liposuction itself — conventional or ultrasonic — already produces. The technology is therefore treated here as a complementary resource within the surgical plan: it does not replace surgical skin removal and is not presented as delivering something surgery cannot. In heavily stretched skin, skin with deep stretch marks, or skin after major weight loss, the indication is usually a different one. Assessment looks at skin quality and thickness, not at sex or age on their own. What is reasonable to expect in your case, including the possibility of not using the technology at all, is discussed at the consultation, together with the risks described in the literature.

It can. The intended tightening comes in two stages: immediate thermal coagulation of collagen and, afterwards, the healing response of the treated tissue, which includes the formation of fibrous tissue — it is from that same response that the tightening is expected. When it is excessive or uneven, the patient feels hardened areas, with tethering or a step in the contour, usually between the third week and the third month. It usually softens over the following months, and wearing the compression garment and following the post-operative measures set by the team help that process, with a response that varies from patient to patient. Hardening that appears early, hurts, comes with redness or does not change over the months needs to be examined, because it may correspond to fat necrosis or to the sequel of a thermal injury rather than to healing fibrosis alone. Areas still hard after several months may need additional treatment. Any new hardening is worth raising at a follow-up visit rather than waiting for it to settle on its own.

Yes, Dr. Lorena performs it. The subdermal use described for the technology includes the neck and the submental region — the double chin — and that region is the subject of the clinical study cited in the references on this page. What differs from the trunk is the safety margin: the skin there is thin and nerve structures run superficially, so the distance between the treated plane and the dermis is smaller. The literature describes burns, including full-thickness burns, when energy is delivered too superficially — which is why the plane and the energy used on the face and neck are not those used on the abdomen, and why indication depends on skin thickness and the degree of laxity. One limit is worth stating plainly: when facial laxity is significant, the goal of repositioning tissue is usually better served by a surgical approach such as a deep plane facelift. Use of the device follows the indications of its registration with Anvisa, the Brazilian health regulator, and what applies to your case is defined at the consultation.