Popularity of cosmetic surgery growing among American minorities

American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery survey indicates Asian, Hispanic cultures comfortable with procedures

Chicago – In a survey released by the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, more than half of respondents said they think the popularity of cosmetic surgery has grown among members of their racial/ethnic group in the last five years.

Among racial/ethnic groups, Asians reported that cosmetic surgery is most popular (31.4 percent of respondents). They were followed by Hispanics (27.4 percent) and African-Americans (18.8 percent) in cosmetic surgery popularity. About one quarter of respondents surveyed indicated they knew someone of the same racial/ethnic background who has gotten cosmetic surgery.

“Cosmetic surgery is en vogue no matter who you are,” said Mark Berman, MD, President of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery. “Feeling better about yourself and making improvements to your looks is thankfully not limited to a specific race or culture.”

For invasive cosmetic surgery procedures, the most common surgery for Asian respondents is a facelift. Among black respondents, the top procedure is liposuction. And for Hispanic respondents, the most popular procedure is abdominoplasty (tummy tuck). More than 30 percent of respondents said they would seek out a cosmetic surgeon of the same race/ethnicity as themselves. And over half of respondents (56.6 percent) said it would be difficult to find a surgeon of the same race/ethnicity as themselves.

Before and after tummy tuck

Source: AACS

Patients With Diabetes May Need Fewer Medications After Bariatric Surgery

Chicago — Bariatric surgery appears to be associated with reduced use of medications and lower health care costs among patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

“The rapidly growing epidemics of obesity and diabetes threaten to overburden the world’s health care systems,” the authors write as background information in the article. “From an epidemiological standpoint, once these diseases develop they are rarely reversed. Dietary, pharmaceutical and behavior treatments for obesity are associated with high failure rates, and medical management of diabetes is also often unsuccessful. Despite many efforts to improve the control of glucose levels in diabetes, including clinical guidelines and patient and provider education, less than half of all patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus achieve the American Diabetes Association recommendation of a hemoglobin A1C level of less than 7 percent.”

The use of bariatric surgery—that results in long-term weight loss, improved lifestyle and decreased risk of death—has tripled in the past five years, the authors note. Martin A. Makary, M.D., M.P.H., and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, studied 2,235 U.S. adults (average age 48.4) with type 2 diabetes who underwent bariatric surgery during a four-year period, from 2002 to 2005. They used claims data to measure the use of diabetes medications before and after surgery, along with health care costs per year.

Of the 2,235 patients, 1,918 (85.8 percent) were taking at least one diabetes medication before surgery, with an average of 4.4 medications per patient. Six months after surgery, 1,669 of 2,235 patients (74.7 percent) had eliminated their diabetes medications. Of the 1,847 patients with available data one year after surgery, 1,489 (80.6 percent) had eliminated medications; after two years, 906 of 1,072 (84.5 percent) had done so. This reduction was observed in all classes of diabetes medications.

Before and after bypass gastric surgery

Read the rest of this entry »

Do Gender Knee Implants Provide Better Outcomes?

- Study finds gender-specific total knee prostheses provide no clinical benefits compared to standard prostheses in women

- For information about knee replacement surgery in Argentina please don’t hesitate to contact Sublimis.

Rosemont, IL – A gender-specific total knee prosthesis was developed to more closely match the anatomy of the female knee, aiming to be a better fit resulting in better outcomes for women. However, a recent study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) found that 85 women who received a gender-specific implant in one knee and a standard prosthesis in the other knee found no clinical benefits of the gender-specific knee.

“We conducted this study to investigate whether women derive less benefit, or perhaps less predictable benefit, from total knee replacement using a standard conventional total knee implant,” said Young-Hoo Kim, M.D., orthopaedic surgeon and lead author of the study.

After receiving knee implants – one gender-specific and one standard prosthesis – the women were assessed for at least two years after surgery. The knees with the gender-specific implant and the knees with the standard implant had similar knee scores and similar range of motion while lying down (125° for the knees with standard implants and 126° for the knees with gender-specific implants). All patients except three were able to bend their knees at least 90°.

Additionally, patient satisfaction with the implants was similar (8.3 points for the standard implants and 8.1 points for the gender-specific implants). A rating of 6 to 8 meant “satisfied,” and a rating of 9 to 10 meant “fully satisfied.”

Important findings included:

* The majority of women in the study (71 females or 84 percent) had no preference between the two implants,
* eight women (9 percent) preferred the standard prosthesis, and
* six (7 percent) preferred the gender-specific prosthesis.

Knee Implant. Source: AAOS.org

Read the rest of this entry »

Argentina, among the most important centers for plastic surgery

- Worldwide Plastic Surgery Statistics Available for the First Time
- Non Surgical Procedures Outpace Surgical Procedures

New York – The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) is a world leader in plastic surgery. After a year-long process, the Society has produced the “ISAPS Biennial Global Survey(TM)” of plastic surgeons and procedures in the top 25 countries and regions – representing 75% of all procedures in 2009. The ISAPS Survey marks the first time reliable international plastic surgery data has been obtained and analyzed by independent statistical specialists.

“This year marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of ISAPS,” noted Foad Nahai, MD of the United States and current President of ISAPS. “The Society was founded at the United Nations by a group of concerned and proactive plastic surgeons. We could think of no better way of commemorating this important milestone than by commissioning and releasing this breakthrough Survey.”

Geographic Trends

The ISAPS Global Survey revealed a new hierarchy of countries with the most surgical and non surgical cosmetic procedures. While the United States continues its dominance in the field, countries not always associated with plastic surgery are emerging as major centers.

The top 25 countries and regions are:

1. United States
2. China
3. Brazil
4. India
5. Mexico
6. Japan
7. South Korea
8. Germany
9. Turkey
10. Spain
11. Argentina
12. Russia
13. Italy
14. France
15. Canada
16. Taiwan
17. United Kingdom
18. Colombia
19. Greece
20. Thailand
21. Australia
22. Venezuela
23. Saudi Arabia
24. Netherlands
25. Portugal

Before and after tummy tuck & breast implants

Most Popular Surgical and Non Surgical Procedures

For the last ten years, the consensus has been that breast augmentation was the most popular plastic surgery procedure. The ISAPS Global Survey reveals a new trend with liposuction representing 18.8% of all surgical procedures, followed by breast augmentation at 17%, and blepharoplasty (upper or lower eyelid lift) at 13.5%, rhinoplasty (nose reshaping) at 9.4% and abdominoplasty (“Tummy Tuck”) at 7.3%.

The popularity of surgical procedures varied by country with Brazil, the United States, China, Mexico, India and Japan the dominant countries for the top five procedures.

Reflecting both advances in cosmetic surgery innovation and the desirability of less expensive treatments, the number of non surgical procedures performed by plastic surgeons actually topped surgical procedures. While there is no previous baseline of information against which to compare these figures, there can be no doubt that this is a dramatic turn of events.

The top five non surgical procedures are: toxins or neuromodulators injections (Botox, Dysport) (32.7%), hyaluronic acid injections (20.1%), laser hair removal (13.1%), autologous fat injections (taking a patient’s fat from one location and transferring it in the same patient in another location) (5.9%) and IP Laser treatment (4.4%).

The countries where non surgical procedures were performed were dominated by the United States, Brazil, Mexico and China and to a lesser extent by Japan, Hungary, South Korea, India and Germany.