Breaking Down the Numbers: Trends in Plastic Surgery Show the Growth of Non-Surgical Procedures

Press Release Source: Advanced Aesthetics, PC On Tuesday May 31, 2011, 8:10 am EDT

ATLANTA, May 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Non-surgical procedures have dramatically outpaced more traditional cosmetic surgery in the past ten years. Even with plastic surgery advances, the more subtle and less costly changes offered by non-surgical products have wide appeal.

Has the downturn in the economy impacted the demand for cosmetic surgery in the US? According to Atlanta plastic surgeon Dr. Paul Feldman of Advanced Aesthetics, PC, the short answer is no. There has been steady demand for plastic surgery procedures. The industry has changed dramatically in the past ten years, however.

Non-surgical products, such as BOTOXR (FDA approved in 2002) and DysportR (FDA approved in 2009), have radically altered the plastic surgery landscape in the last decade. Non-surgical procedures are now more in demand than more traditional surgical procedures. Going by the sheer number of procedures performed, cosmetic surgeons now perform non-surgical procedures 90% of the time. By contrast, non-surgical procedures accounted for only 26% of the procedures performed in 2000.

Statistics supplied by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) confirm that the top 5 surgeries in the Southeast region are breast augmentation, liposuction, eyelid surgery, rhinoplasty, and facelift. Nationwide, tummy tucks (abdominoplasty) replaced facelifts in the top procedure list. The top five non-surgical procedures in the Southeast region are BOTOXR/DysportR, wrinkle fillers, chemical peels, laser hair removal, and microdermabrasion.

The Atlanta, Georgia, area reflects these national trends. Women compose a large majority of Atlanta plastic surgery patients, and breast augmentation is still far and away the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure requested. Non-surgical procedures, including wrinkle fillers like JuvedermR, have outpaced more extensive surgical procedures. While non-surgical procedures are less expensive and require far less healing time, the results from non-surgical procedures are more subtle, superficial, and temporary.

Drs Feldman, Gronka, and Raniere offer two options for cosmetic enhancement. They perform all surgical options at Advanced Aesthetics, PC (http://www.plasticsurgerycorner.com) in a modern surgicenter that combines a friendly home-like environment with a state-of-the-art medical facility. It is state-licensed and fully accredited. Advanced Aesthetics offers a full range of cosmetic surgical procedures of the face, breast, and body.

Truffles Medispa (http://www.trufflesmedispa.com) offers less intense non-surgical procedures such as Botox, Fillers, and Laser procedures for those patients looking to avoid surgery. Truffles is a deluxe Medispa offering these procedures and medical grade skin care, all under a Plastic Surgeon's expertise.

About Advanced Aesthetics, PC:

Advanced Aesthetics is one of the most successful Atlanta-area cosmetic surgery practices, with offices in three south Atlanta locations: Fayetteville, McDonough, and Newman. Truffles Medispa is located next to and inside Advanced Aesthetics in Fayetteville and McDonough.

The Fayetteville office is located at One Prestige Park, 874 West Lanier Avenue, Suite 100, Fayetteville, GA 30214. They can be reached by phone at 770-461-4000.

Media Contact:
Dr. Paul Feldman, Advanced Aesthetics, PC, 770-461-4000, http://www.plasticsurgerycorner.com

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Chinese Turn to Plastic Surgery in Growing Numbers

But her jaw line? Too square for her liking. So the 22-year-old television reporter recently traveled from a coastal province to a private hospital in downtown Beijing to have it reshaped — for about $6,000. Her boyfriend, a 29-year-old businessman wearing designer eyeglasses, picked up the bill.

“I am not nervous at all,” said Devil (the English first name she chose for herself, and the only one she would reveal) as she awaited surgery at Evercare Aikang hospital in downtown Beijing. “I will look more sophisticated and exquisite.”

The breathtaking pace of transformation for upwardly mobile Chinese — from bicycles to cars, village to city, housebound holidays to ski vacations — now extends to faces. In just a decade, cosmetic and plastic surgery has become the fourth most popular way to spend discretionary income in China, according to Ma Xiaowei, China’s vice health minister. Only houses, cars and travel rank higher, he said.

No official figures exist, but the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery estimated in 2009 that China ranked third, behind the United States and Brazil, with more than two million operations annually. And the number of operations is doubling every year, Mr. Ma said at a conference organized by the Health Ministry in November.

“We must recognize that plastic and cosmetic surgery has now become a common service, aimed at the masses,” he said.

Face-lifts and wrinkle-removal treatments are in vogue, just as in the West. But at Evercare, which runs a chain of cosmetic-surgery hospitals in China, two-fifths of patients are in their 20s, said Li Bin, the general manager and one of the founders.

Nationally, the most requested surgeries have nothing to do with age: The No. 1 operation is designed to make eyes appear larger by adding a crease in the eyelid, forming what is called a double eyelid, said Zhao Zhenmin, secretary general of the government-run Chinese Association of Plastics and Aesthetics.

The second most popular operation raises the bridge of the nose to make it more prominent — the opposite of the typical nose job in the West. Third is the reshaping of the jaw to make it narrower and longer, he said.

The youthful patients include job applicants hoping to enhance their prospects in the work force, teenagers who received cosmetic surgery as a high school graduation present and even middle school students, most of whom want eye jobs, surgeons say.

China’s regulatory system, by all accounts, has not kept up. At the conference in Beijing in November, Mr. Ma, the vice health minister, said the situation “can even be called neglect.”

Out of 11 clinics and hospitals offering cosmetic or plastic surgery that were inspected late last year, he said, fewer than half met national standards. Employees lacked professional credentials, he said; equipment and materials were subpar. Beauty parlors are flagrant violators, illegally administering Botox injections and performing eyelid surgery.

Mr. Ma likened the industry to a medical “disaster zone,” with frequent accidents. His point was underscored when a 24-year-old former contestant on the Chinese reality show “Super Girl” died after her windpipe filled with blood during an operation to reshape her jaw in Hubei Province.

Health officials demanded an inquiry. But Mr. Zhao, who also serves as the vice director of Beijing’s government-run Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery Hospital, said it was impossible to gather evidence because the body was quickly cremated — a common practice in China when hospitals privately settle malpractice claims.

“Personally speaking, I think this is pretty despicable,” he said. “We need to get to the bottom of such cases in order to protect people in the future.”

The shortcomings of China’s medical system are hardly limited to cosmetic and plastic surgery. But the industry now generates an estimated $2.3 billion in revenue, and the government has begun to take note. Officials say new regulations will probably be issued this year.

One implicit goal is to halt the flow of Chinese patients to better-established hospitals in South Korea. Mr. Ma estimates that Chinese make up 30 percent of cosmetic surgery patients in Seoul.

For now, many beauty salons, like one downtown Beijing branch of a major chain, are capitalizing on the lack of oversight. One recent afternoon, a 62-year-old woman in a white coat who described herself as an internist said she could summon a doctor who could give a visitor double eyelids in 20 minutes about $180, a fraction of the standard hospital fee.

“Immediately you will look different,” she said.

Shi Da, Li Bibo, Zhang Jing and Jonathan Kaiman contributed research.

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