A woman got a trendy new sculpting procedure to tone her stomach. She was left with permanent burn marks.

• A 37-year-old woman got a cutting-edge procedure to tighten the appearance of her skin after liposuction.
• She was left with skin discoloration, abdominal pain, and a fever, which doctors thought was an infection.

A woman who got a cutting-edge cosmetic surgery to tone her stomach was left with discolored marks across her torso due to burns under her skin, according to a report published in the American Journal of Case Reports.

The 37-year-old woman had previously undergone liposuction and a breast reduction, and she returned to the operating table in 2022 for a procedure meant to tighten her skin and tone her belly. At the time, the device used in surgery was recently FDA-approved for use on loose neck skin, but her procedure was an off-label use.

Known as "liposculpture," the procedure involved the rapid heating and cooling of the tissue layer just under the skin. This patient underwent a new liposculpture technology called Renuvion, which is meant to deliver more precise results via a helium plasma wand.

Less than a week after her procedure, the patient came to the emergency room with an on-and-off fever, abdominal pain, and nausea — all of which could point to a postoperative skin infection, the authors wrote in the case report.

The upper right side of her abdomen was discolored, warm, and tender when she was admitted, according to the report. Even after doctors gave her IV antibiotics, the woman's pain got worse.

She was eventually treated for burns and improved over a six-month period, although her skin discoloration never fully resolved. Her case represents a rare complication of a relatively new liposculpture technology.

The procedure was recently approved for tightening loose skin

Renuvion, also known as J-Plasma, was initially approved by the Food and Drug Administration to improve the appearance of loose skin around the neck and chin. It may also be used to tighten other areas of the body , since the FDA just updated its approval in February 2023.

The "quick contouring" technology has been touted by plastic surgeons as a game-changer in body shaping surgery, as it can be applied during a liposuction procedure to make the skin appear tighter.

The Renuvion technology targets the soft tissue layer just under the skin with a combination of radiofrequency energy and helium plasma. The helium has a cooling effect, which helps contain the delivery of heat to a precise area.

A review published in 2019 found no documented thermal burns associated with more than 100 Renuvion procedures. The authors of the case report noted, however, that it's possible we may see more adverse events as Renuvion is used more often.

Renuvion did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The woman was treated with light therapy

As soon as the patient's doctors realized that her symptoms were mainly caused by burns under the skin, they took her off most of the antibiotics they initially prescribed and started treating the thermal injury.

They gave her a cream containing silver sulfadiazine to reduce the risk of infection in her burns, which was a concern. The authors of the case report noted that the woman had some liquid seeping from her surgical incisions, which could also indicate an infection.

The woman returned to the hospital as an outpatient for multiple multiple rounds of infrared light therapy and lymphatic massage techniques, which both improved the appearance and pain associated with her tissue burns. However, she still had some skin discoloration at her six-month follow-up, according to the case report.