Still More on Cosmetic Surgery

The first is an August 29, 2000, news release from Reuters Health http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/200... about the increase in cosmetic surgery. Overall, beauty-enhancing surgery--which includes procedures such as liposuction, breast augmentation and reduction, facelifts, and eyelid surgery--has increased 175% since 1992. Statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), the largest plastic surgery organization in the world, reveal the following trends:

• The most popular procedures--eye surgery, liposuction, and breast augmentation--have increased by an average of 25% annually over the past 10 years.
• The next most popular procedures are facelifts and tummy tucks, with the number of facelifts increasing more than 80% since 1992 and tummy tucks up by 300%.
• Men now account for 11% of all cosmetic surgeries; liposuction, the most popular procedure among men, has increased fivefold since 1992, and facelifts for men have doubled in the same time period.
• Breast augmentation, the second most popular procedure among women, has increased fivefold since 1992.

(These statistics reflect procedures performed by members of ASPS and the Royal College of Physicians of Canada.)

In an interview with Reuters Health, Dr. Walter Erhardt, a plastic surgeon with a private practice in Albany, Georgia, and president-elect of ASPS, said that the image of cosmetic surgery has improved recently. "Everybody's eating right and drinking water and the desire to look good is somewhat of a natural extension of healthfulness and exercising," Erhardt said.

The second news item comes from television: programs highlighting cosmetic surgery that appeared recently on Discovery Health Channel and the NBC show Extra. The program on Discovery Health Channel is called "Body Perfect." Both of these programs feature the LaserBra, a breast-lift technique developed by Dr. Grant Stevens of southern California. Because I was unable to see either of these programs, I've taken the following information from Dr. Stevens's Web site http://www.laserbra.com

Women who request a breast lift, or mastopexy, usually say that their breasts sag and the nipple is too low. According to Dr. Stevens, in a traditional breast lift the surgeon removes and discards excess skin and fatty tissue. However, after noticing the way lasers shrink the sagging skin on women's faces, Dr. Stevens decided to try using a laser to produce a similar effect on the breasts.

With his trademarked LaserBra technique, Dr. Stevens uses a laser to treat the extra skin that in a traditional procedure would be discarded. He then fastens the treated skin to the chest wall so that it will support the breast. Dr. Stevens claims that his procedure has several advantages over the traditional technique: because it uses the patient's own tissue, there is no problem with rejection; because the nipple is left intact, there is no problem with loss of sensation; the supporting tissue reduces the subsequent problem of "fallout," in which the breast continues to descend afterwards; the use of the laser reduces the amount of blood loss, bruising, and scarring; and this technique reduces the time of the operation by 30 to 40 minutes.

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