Seoul
Chief MD, Gangnam
Duk-ha Kim
The trust our patients have placed in this clinic was built on conviction and principle. We intend to hold to both, unchanged, through the next hundred years.
Submental fat injection guide
Submental Fat Injection
Deoxycholic acid injections are approved for one area only — submental fat, meaning the fat under the chin, in adults — in both the United States and Korea. A Korean clinic menu may list a double chin fat-target injection at 2cc, a body fat-target injection at 2cc, and course packages naming V OLET, and those entries are not equal in regulatory terms: the body entry sits outside the approved area on every record cited here, and the U.S. label states that use outside the submental region has not been established and is not recommended. The two things to settle before treatment are which area is being injected and which product is in the syringe.
- Approved area
- Submental fat — under the chin — in adults
- Ingredient with approvals
- Deoxycholic acid; cytolytic and not selective for fat cells
- Body areas
- Outside the approved indication on the U.S. and Korean records cited here
- Status in Korea
- Prescription-only medicine, selected by a physician
What exactly is listed when a Korean menu shows a fat-target injection?
Three kinds of entries sit under this heading and they are not one proposition. The booking menu lists a double chin fat-target injection at 2cc, a body fat-target injection at 2cc, and course packages that include V OLET. Read each line as an area plus a volume of solution: 2cc states how much liquid is planned and states nothing about what the liquid contains. V OLET is one of the deoxycholic acid products approved in Korea, and that is as far as this page goes. The Korean approval records this page did check are Bellacholine injection and Lipolin injection. For the two fat-target entries, no primary source available here establishes the ingredient at all, so the ingredient has to be named by the clinician.
Sources: MFDS drug product record — Bellacholine injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2024-01-25MFDS drug product record — Lipolin injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2025-08-22
Does deoxycholic acid act only on fat cells?
No, and the approved U.S. label says so directly. Section 12.1 of the KYBELLA label describes deoxycholic acid as a cytolytic drug: injected into tissue it physically destroys the cell membrane, and that action is not selective for fat cells. Most of this page follows from that single sentence. A substance that breaks membranes in whatever tissue it reaches has to be placed precisely, which is why the label warns that injection into the dermis — in other words too shallow — can cause skin ulceration and necrosis, and why depth, volume and the anatomy under the needle are decisions for a licensed injector rather than for a menu. It is also why the approved area is written so narrowly. The approval describes one fat compartment in one location, not a general fat-removal effect that can be aimed anywhere on the body.
Which area and which patients does the approval cover?
Under the chin, in adults, and that is the whole of it. The U.S. KYBELLA label carries a single indication — "indicated for improvement in the appearance of moderate to severe convexity or fullness associated with submental fat in adults" — and draws the boundary in the same document: "safe and effective use ... outside the submental region has not been established and is not recommended". Safety and effectiveness in patients under 18 years of age have not been established. Korea holds its own records with the same anatomical limit: Bellacholine injection, approved on 25 January 2024, and Lipolin injection, approved on 22 August 2025, both cover improvement of moderate to severe protruding or excessive submental fat in adults and are registered as prescription-only medicines. Submental means the soft tissue under the chin. No record cited on this page reaches past it, and a U.S. record and a Korean record never extend one another.
Sources: FDA label — KYBELLA (deoxycholic acid injection)MFDS drug product record — Bellacholine injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2024-01-25MFDS drug product record — Lipolin injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2025-08-22
The same menu offers a body fat-target injection — is the body an approved area?
Not on any record cited here, and the U.S. label does not merely stay silent about it: it states that use outside the submental region has not been established and is not recommended. The Korean approvals for Bellacholine injection and Lipolin injection are written for submental fat in adults as well, so arms, abdomen, thighs, flanks and back fall outside the indication on every record this page checked. Two different gaps can apply to a body entry and they are worth separating. The first is an area gap: an approved medicine proposed for a site its approval does not cover. The second is a product gap: a preparation that holds no approval anywhere, which is the subject of the FDA notice discussed below. If a body area is proposed to you, ask which of the two you are being offered, ask the clinician to state plainly that the use falls outside the approved indication when it does, and ask what follow-up that entails.
Sources: FDA label — KYBELLA (deoxycholic acid injection)MFDS drug product record — Bellacholine injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2024-01-25MFDS drug product record — Lipolin injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2025-08-22FDA — Using fat-dissolving injections that are not FDA approved can be harmful (2023-12-20)
Which deoxycholic acid products hold a Korean approval?
Two are documented on this page from Korean regulatory records. Bellacholine injection was approved by the MFDS on 25 January 2024 and Lipolin injection on 22 August 2025. Both are prescription-only medicines indicated for improvement of moderate to severe protruding or excessive submental fat in adults, and both carry precautions covering marginal mandibular nerve injury, difficulty swallowing, and ulceration or necrosis when the injection reaches the dermis. V OLET, which appears in the course names on the menu, is one of the deoxycholic acid products approved in Korea. Prescription-only status is the practical point for a visitor: the medicine is not chosen from a price list, it is selected by a physician who has examined you, and you are entitled to be told which one was selected.
Sources: MFDS drug product record — Bellacholine injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2024-01-25MFDS drug product record — Lipolin injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2025-08-22
What did the trial behind the approval find, and how many participants had side effects?
Both halves of that question have published answers and they belong together. REFINE-2 was a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase III trial run at 28 sites across five countries, with 363 participants randomized, up to four treatments spaced 28 plus or minus 5 days apart, and follow-up continuing for 12 weeks after the final dose. Response rates were 59.2% and 65.3% against 23.0% on placebo. In the same trial, treatment-related adverse events were recorded in 90.8% and 95.0% of the treated participants, compared with 50.8% of those given placebo. Read as one result, that says a majority of treated participants met the trial definition of response, and that almost all of them had a treatment-related adverse event on the way there. A response figure quoted without the adverse event figure is half a trial, and the half that is missing is the half about you.
How long does the effect last?
REFINE-2, the trial behind the approval, measured its result once: at 12 weeks after the last of up to four treatments spaced 28 plus or minus 5 days apart. That is the entire observation window in the record cited here — the trial does not report what happens to a treated area at six months, a year, or beyond, so no source on this page supports a duration figure past that 12-week endpoint. The label’s mechanism section is the other half of the picture: deoxycholic acid is described as cytolytic, physically destroying the cell membrane on contact, which is a different kind of action from a filler that gradually resorbs, but none of the sources cited here quantify how long the resulting change in the treated area persists once cell destruction has occurred. What actually varies the outcome is how many of the up to four sessions were completed, the dose and technique used in each, and the anatomy of the area treated — the trial’s own protocol left the number of treatments partly open by design. What to confirm at consultation: how many sessions the physician is planning and at roughly what spacing, and whether the clinic can point to any assessment of the treated area beyond the 12-week point the trial itself studied.
Sources: REFINE-2 phase III trial, Br J Dermatol 2014FDA label — KYBELLA (deoxycholic acid injection)
Which harms are printed on the label, and how long did they last?
They cluster around the structures that sit inside and next to the injection field, and the approved U.S. label carries no boxed warning. The marginal mandibular nerve runs close to the treated area, and injury to it appears in the label as "asymmetric smile or facial muscle weakness (paresis)", with cases resolving spontaneously across a range of 1 to 298 days and a median of 44 days. Swallowing is the second structure at stake: dysphagia is reported across a range of 1 to 81 days with a median of 3 days. Depth failure is the third group, since injection into the dermis can cause skin ulceration and necrosis. Infection is the fourth: cellulitis and abscess have required intravenous antibiotics. The Korean records for Bellacholine injection and Lipolin injection list the same categories among their precautions. Those durations are counted in weeks and months rather than hours, which is the part most worth planning around.
Sources: FDA label — KYBELLA (deoxycholic acid injection)MFDS drug product record — Bellacholine injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2024-01-25MFDS drug product record — Lipolin injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2025-08-22
What is different about a product that holds no approval at all?
Nobody has assessed it — that is the difference, and it is a separate problem from using an approved medicine outside its approved area. On 20 December 2023 the FDA published a consumer notice stating that using fat-dissolving injections that are not FDA approved can be harmful. The notice states that "Kybella ... is the only fat-dissolving injectable drug that is FDA approved", and it identifies phosphatidylcholine and sodium deoxycholate preparations as unapproved, meaning the agency has not evaluated their safety or their effectiveness. The harms reported to the agency for unapproved products are structural rather than temporary: permanent scarring, severe infection, skin deformity, cysts and painful knots. When a menu entry names neither a product nor an ingredient you cannot tell which group it belongs to, and the two groups carry different kinds of risk with different remedies.
Sources: FDA — Using fat-dissolving injections that are not FDA approved can be harmful (2023-12-20)FDA label — KYBELLA (deoxycholic acid injection)
How do you find out what is actually in the syringe?
Ask to see it before it is drawn up. A registered medicine arrives in labelled packaging, and asking the clinic to show you the carton or vial and to read out the product name and the active ingredient is an ordinary consultation request, not an accusation. Four answers make an entry checkable: the product name as registered, the active ingredient, the regulator and approval date behind it, and the body area that approval covers. Add a fifth question in Korea — is the product a prescription-only medicine — because the deoxycholic acid products documented here are, and that means a physician has to select and prescribe it rather than a coordinator adding it to a course. If the reply describes a technique, a course name or a cc figure instead of naming a product, the question has not been answered yet.
Sources: MFDS drug product record — Bellacholine injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2024-01-25MFDS drug product record — Lipolin injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2025-08-22FDA — Using fat-dissolving injections that are not FDA approved can be harmful (2023-12-20)
What should be settled before you agree to the injection?
The area first, then the product, then the plan. Confirm which site is being injected and whether that site falls inside the approved indication of the product being used; where it does not, ask the clinician to say so explicitly and to explain the reasoning and the monitoring that follows. Confirm the product name and the ingredient. Then give the clinician what only you can supply: current medicines, any bleeding or clotting disorder, previous surgery or injections in the area, any infection or skin problem at the site, past reactions to injectable treatments, and pregnancy or breastfeeding. Finally fix the aftercare route — who to contact, through which channel, and in which language — because the label durations show that some effects are followed for weeks or months rather than for the length of a trip.
Sources: FDA label — KYBELLA (deoxycholic acid injection)MFDS drug product record — Bellacholine injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2024-01-25MFDS drug product record — Lipolin injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2025-08-22
Which areas and which patients are covered by an approval, and which are not?
This table lines up areas and populations against the regulatory records cited on this page, because the approved area is where this menu category actually divides. It does not state what any specific menu entry contains and it is not an efficacy ranking.
| Area or group | Record cited here | What the record says | What that means on the menu |
|---|---|---|---|
| Submental fat — under the chin — in adults, United States | U.S. FDA KYBELLA label | Indicated for improvement in the appearance of moderate to severe convexity or fullness associated with submental fat in adults | The only area covered by this U.S. record; the label carries no boxed warning |
| Submental fat in adults, Korea | MFDS records — Bellacholine injection, approved 2024-01-25; Lipolin injection, approved 2025-08-22 | Improvement of moderate to severe protruding or excessive submental fat in adults; both registered as prescription-only medicines | A double chin entry sits inside this indication only when the product used is an approved medicine and a physician has prescribed it |
| Arms, abdomen, thighs and other body areas | U.S. FDA KYBELLA label; MFDS records for Bellacholine injection and Lipolin injection | Safe and effective use outside the submental region has not been established and is not recommended; the Korean indications are likewise written for submental fat | A body fat-target entry falls outside the approved area on every record cited here — ask which approval the proposed use rests on |
| Patients under 18 years of age | U.S. FDA KYBELLA label | Safety and effectiveness in patients under 18 years of age have not been established | Not covered by the approval regardless of which area is discussed |
| Preparations with no approval record | FDA consumer notice, 2023-12-20 | Phosphatidylcholine and sodium deoxycholate preparations are unapproved and the agency has not evaluated their safety or effectiveness; Kybella is described as the only FDA-approved fat-dissolving injectable drug | Reported harms include permanent scarring, severe infection, skin deformity, cysts and painful knots |
This table compares regulatory records for areas and populations only. It does not say which product any clinic uses, does not rank effectiveness, and does not extend a U.S. record to Korea or a Korean record to the United States.
Sources: FDA label — KYBELLA (deoxycholic acid injection)MFDS drug product record — Bellacholine injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2024-01-25MFDS drug product record — Lipolin injection (deoxycholic acid), approved 2025-08-22FDA — Using fat-dissolving injections that are not FDA approved can be harmful (2023-12-20)
Medical care at Abijou
Care is provided by the medical team at the branch you select. These clinicians lead the three branches linked from this guide; confirm the doctor assigned to your visit with that branch.
Chief MD, Myeongdong
Cheol-su Yoon
I want to be thinking about how the patient feels right up to the last moment of the procedure.
Chief MD, Hongdae
Jae-wook Kim
I will give my best with the attentiveness to catch even the smallest change.
Listed branch medical team — not a medical-review byline for this article.
Frequently asked questions
What does a double chin fat-target injection 2cc actually mean on a Korean menu?
It names a treatment area and a planned volume of solution, and nothing more. The 2cc figure describes how much liquid is prepared; it does not identify an ingredient, a manufacturer or an approval. No primary source available to this page establishes what those fat-target entries contain, so the product and the ingredient have to come from the clinician before the syringe is filled.
What is V OLET?
It is one of the deoxycholic acid products approved in Korea, and this page stops there. The Korean records checked for this page are Bellacholine injection, approved on 25 January 2024, and Lipolin injection, approved on 22 August 2025, both prescription-only medicines for submental fat in adults.
Does an injection of deoxycholic acid only break down fat?
No. The KYBELLA label describes deoxycholic acid as a cytolytic drug that physically destroys the cell membrane when injected into tissue and states that the action is not selective for fat cells. That is why the same label warns that injection into the dermis can cause skin ulceration and necrosis, and why placement is treated as a clinical decision rather than a technique detail.
Does the body fat-target injection rest on the same approval as the chin one?
No, and no record cited here covers a body area. The U.S. KYBELLA label states that safe and effective use outside the submental region has not been established and is not recommended, and the Korean approvals for Bellacholine injection and Lipolin injection are written for submental fat in adults. If a body site is proposed to you, ask directly which approval that use rests on and ask for the answer in terms of a named product.
Is every fat-target injection on a Korean menu deoxycholic acid?
That is not established, and assuming it is the weakest step a patient can take. Korea has approved deoxycholic acid medicines with named indications and prescription-only status, but a menu line that gives only an area and a cc figure does not tell you whether such a medicine is what will be used. Ask for the registered product name and the active ingredient, and treat the ingredient as unknown until you hear one.
Is a device that targets fat covered by the same evidence as this injection?
No, and this page holds no comparison between the two. Everything cited here documents an injectable drug: a label, two Korean product records and one randomized trial of that drug. None of those sources measured a device, so nothing on this page supports a statement that one approach does more or less than the other. Ask a clinician to assess your own anatomy instead of reading a ranking into this page.
How much swelling under the chin should I expect afterwards?
The sources cited here publish no pain score and no swelling scale, so this page will not invent one. What the trial does show is how common reactions were: REFINE-2 recorded treatment-related adverse events in 90.8% and 95.0% of the two treated groups, versus 50.8% under placebo. Ask the clinic which anaesthetic approach it uses and what it expects in the days after treatment.
When would eating and speaking be back to normal?
The label reports durations rather than a recovery promise. Dysphagia — difficulty swallowing — was reported across a range of 1 to 81 days with a median of 3 days, and marginal mandibular nerve injury presenting as an asymmetric smile or facial muscle weakness resolved spontaneously across a range of 1 to 298 days with a median of 44 days. Weigh those ranges against work that depends on speaking or appearing on camera.
How many injections were given in the trial?
Up to four, spaced 28 plus or minus 5 days apart, with follow-up for 12 weeks after the final dose. That is a trial protocol and not a course prescribed for you. In Korea the deoxycholic acid products documented here are prescription-only medicines, so the number of sessions and the interval between them are decided by a physician after an in-person examination.
Is there an age limit?
The approval is written for adults, and safety and effectiveness in patients under 18 years of age have not been established on the U.S. label. The Korean indications for Bellacholine injection and Lipolin injection are also written for adults, and both are prescription-only medicines, which means eligibility is a physician’s judgement made after examining you rather than a box to tick on a booking form.
Which symptoms after the injection need medical attention straight away?
Contact the treating clinic immediately for skin ulceration or an area that darkens or breaks down, for spreading redness, heat or swelling that could indicate cellulitis or an abscess — the label records cases that required intravenous antibiotics — for difficulty swallowing, and for an asymmetric smile or facial muscle weakness. Tell any emergency clinician the exact product injected, the ingredient, the site and the date.
If it is FDA approved, does that mean it is approved in Korea too?
No, those are separate records and neither extends the other. The U.S. FDA approval covers KYBELLA; Korea has its own MFDS approvals, including Bellacholine injection on 25 January 2024 and Lipolin injection on 22 August 2025. What the two jurisdictions share here is the anatomical limit: submental fat in adults. Ask which country’s record the product in front of you belongs to.
Two clinics quote the same 2cc — how should I compare them?
Compare the product and the area before you compare anything numerical. Identical cc figures can refer to different preparations with different regulatory status, so a per-cc comparison means nothing until both quotes name the same registered product for the same treatment area. Then align the number of sessions included and the follow-up covered. This page carries no prices; ask each clinic for its current terms.
Who is the approved indication written for?
Adults with moderate to severe convexity or fullness associated with submental fat, as worded on the U.S. label, and adults with moderate to severe protruding or excessive submental fat on the Korean records. Whether you fit that description is decided in person by a physician, not by a photograph or a menu, and a wish for body contouring is not what these records cover.
How Abijou works
We started in Gangnam in 2006 and the network now runs 17 branches across Korea. The line we work to is skin transformation woven into everyday life — care you can keep up with, rather than one dramatic change.
- Across the 17 branches in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon and Busan: over 1,000 medical professionals and more than 350 certified medical devices
- Authentic products only, in appropriate amounts — the treatment is fitted to the condition, not to a package
- Prices are quoted from each branch’s published price list as it stands
Contact and location
- Phone
- 1544-0377
Free Consultation
Booking happens at the branch
There is no inquiry form on this page. Once you have picked a branch above, open that branch’s site or the official reservation center and choose a time yourself.
- No deposit and no online prepayment — everything is paid at the visit
- Per-treatment prices are published for each branch on the official reservation center
- English, Japanese and Chinese are supported alongside Korean