Reduced Lidocaine Concentration in Tumescent Liposuction: A Report of Efficacy at 400 mg/L

Tumescent liposuction is considered a very safe procedure, but increasing dosages of total lidocaine used in extensive procedures have raised concerns about safety. Multiple cases of fatality probably related to lidocaine toxicity have raised questions about continued performance of liposuction in the office setting; these questions are being evaluated by several state medical boards. We performed a prospective nonblinded evaluation of 100 consecutive tumescent liposuction procedures using the traditional 0.05% lidocaine concentration versus a 0.04% concentration, which theoretically can reduce the total lidocaine dosage by 20% with no evidence of reduced efficacy. We believe that this new dosage could potentially decrease the likelihood of lidocaine-related events, although additional studies are required to confirm our findings.