TOPIC: Surgimend recall?

Had a visit at Dr. Liu’s office. Found out surgimend is being recalled and future availability is unknown. (They called surgimend manufacturer and were told they weren’t sure when/if it’ll be available again?!)

To those who had it implanted I wouldn’t worry.
It sounded like the recall was out of an abundance of caution.
One possibly contaminated batch (which haven’t been used) and they recalled it all.
Frankly the manufacturer’s safety process kind of impressed me.

However, that leaves those of us who’re contemplating a surgimend procedure with only one option - alloderm.

I looked at the package with the thickest alloderm version.
The box showed 3.4 mm with a +/- 0.6 mm variance.
So it could be 2.8 mm or 4.0 mm thick?

Surgimend is very precise with 1, 2, 3 or 4 mm uniform thickness.

Definitely a decision roadblock I did not expect…

Recall article:
www.medtechdive.com/news/IART-integra-re...ton-facility/651095/

123abc wrote: Had a visit at Dr. Liu’s office. Found out surgimend is being recalled and future availability is unknown. (They called surgimend manufacturer and were told they weren’t sure when/if it’ll be available again?!)

To those who had it implanted I wouldn’t worry.
It sounded like the recall was out of an abundance of caution.
One possibly contaminated batch (which haven’t been used) and they recalled it all.
Frankly the manufacturer’s safety process kind of impressed me.

However, that leaves those of us who’re contemplating a surgimend procedure with only one option - alloderm.

I looked at the package with the thickest alloderm version.
The box showed 3.4 mm with a +/- 0.6 mm variance.
So it could be 2.8 mm or 4.0 mm thick?

Surgimend is very precise with 1, 2, 3 or 4 mm uniform thickness.

Definitely a decision roadblock I did not expect…

Recall article:
www.medtechdive.com/news/IART-integra-re...ton-facility/651095/

Alloderm has been around for a while (pre-dating Surgimend) and without recall, I imagine that makes for a very reasonable substitute.

An update directly from Dr. Liu himself:

I see that there are questions concerning the recent recall of Surgimend, and I wish to state my position regarding it.

Surgimend was recalled some time in May, 2023 because of the discovery that a small number of batches of the products were contaminated. They did the right thing by recalling all products and production has been stopped. It is uncertain when, if ever, it would be produced again.

I personally have stopped using Surgimend for other reasons since March 2023, and am unsure as to whether I would use it after they restart to produce it again. Since then I have been using Alloderm exclusively and my patients and I are very happy with it.

Alloderm by itself may give a little less increase in girth than Surgimend, but this can be more than compensated for by injecting some fillers or fat at the same time or at a later date.

Alloderm plus injection with fat or filler can give you as much increase in girth as one desires.

If anyone has any questions for me regarding this please write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or write to the forum.

Best wishes.

Victor Liu, MD

I saw on the Alloderm's website there are different thicknesses depending on the application. I would like to ask which thickness Alloderm Dr. Liu uses for his girth augmentation procedure and what average increase in girth his patients see with Alloderm alone?

Alloderm product line-up page: hcp.alloderm.com/portfolio#productportfolio

At Dr. Lou’s office I got to see the box it came in which showed:

3.4mm +/- 0.6mm

So basically somewhere between 2.8-4.0

That the thickest alloderm out there..