Ten Plastic Surgery Procedures to Avoid in 2009
Cosmetic surgical procedure continues to redifine its place in medicine. Cosmetic surgical procedure is becoming popular culture with the reality TV shows and rumors of celebrities that have had cosmetic surgical procedure. A quantity of the procedures that appear to get the most attention are “fringe” cosmetic surgical procedure procedures.
There’s a considerable number of procedures that have an excellent track record of safety, effectiveness, and patient satisfaction. In my view procedures like breast augmentation, abdominoplasty, face lift, blepharoplasty, and liposuction would fit in to this criteria.
There’s other procedures that are being done on a process basis that are in principle at the least daft and possibly even unsafe. This is the authors current top ten list of cosmetic surgical procedure procedures to keep away from:
1. Lipodissolve and mesotherapy – this involves the injection of a non-standardized mix of chemicals which claims to dissolve the fat away. The amount of fat dissolved is unpredictable and usually small to none. The broken down fat cells and cholesterol are reportedly excreted as waste. There is some concern that this might deposit in the arteries leading to premature heart disease. Mostly, this is a waste of funds with small proven benefit.
2. Buttock augmentation – I am not speaking about correcting irregularities with fat grafts. I am speaking about implants used to add buttock fullness. High risk of infection and implant complications. I think the fad will finish faster than the pain from sitting on these implants.
3. Permanent Fillers – Seldom, ever let someone inject silicone in to your face. Temporary fillers (Radiesse, Restylane \.) or natural fat injection is O.K.
4. Injection for Breast Augmentation – Injection of soft tissue fillers to increase the breast volume. The procedure is expensive and the period of effect can be short lived. Risks include breast lumps that can be difficult to rule out breast cancer.
5. Transumbilical breast augmentation (TUBA) – The scar for breast augmentation is seldom an issue after surgical procedure. The scar around the stomach button is visible in a bra or bikini. The revision rate is high and the implants tend to sit wide and move unnaturally with exercise. Silicone implants cannot be used. If a revision is necessary, a much longer incision on the breast is necessary. This is promotion hype and has no place in breast augmentation.
6. Cosmetic Leg Lengthening Surgical procedure – The leg bones are broken and lengthened over time in a procedure called “distraction osteogenesis”. Actually a rare operation.
7. Pectoral implants – Similar to buttock implants.
8. Laser lipo or smartlipo – No proven advantage to tumescent liposuction but there’s disadvantages. Disadvantages include the cost of the know-how and the usually poorly trained physicians currently using this know-how. Only a few plastic surgeons have embraced this know-how as the studies have not demonstrated advantage. In the future this may change, if studies can demonstrate improved safety, efficacy or both as compared to tried and true techniques.
9. Phenol peels – deep chemical peel that can make a patient look like a pale burn victim. There’s much better options including laser therapy and moderate peels such as TCA peels.
10. Physicians without proper training – This is truly most important. Pick a board certified plastic surgeon and you are on the right step. To become board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgical procedure, a plastic surgeon must first complete intensive training in an accredited training program. Thereafter, the surgeon must pass rigorous written and oral examinations given by the board.
The American Board of Plastic Surgical procedure is one of only 24 accredited specialty boards recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and is the only board recognized by the ABMS to certify a surgeon in cosmetic surgical procedure. There’s a considerable number of other boarding organizations that include “facial”, “aesthetic” or “cosmetic” in the title. These are not recognized by the ABMS and do not have the same training requirements.