Plastic Surgery

Aesthetic plastic surgery procedures are as varied as the many areas of the body they seek to enhance. They range from reshaping the nose and enlarging women's breasts to hair transplants for balding men and liposuction to remove unwanted fat from the body. For many years aesthetic plastic surgery, popularly known as cosmetic surgery, was held in low esteem by many within the plastic surgery field. This disdain was largely because aesthetic surgery was generally not a necessary procedure based on medical need or gross deformity, but rather on the patient's vanity or desire to have his or her looks surgically enhanced.

Today, hundreds of thousands of aesthetic plastic surgery procedures are conducted each year. Many of the operations are outpatient procedures, meaning they require no hospitalization overnight. However, the complexity of the procedures vary. Breast enlargements, for example, are made with a simple incision in the breast in which a bag-like structure filled with either silicone or saline is inserted and sewn into place. Facelifts, on the other hand, involve cutting the skin from the hairline to the back of the ear. The loosened skin can then be stretched upward from the neck and stitched together for a tighter, wrinkle free appearance. Another aesthetic surgery for facial skin is called skin peeling, which is used primarily on patients with scarred faces due to acne or some other disease. A surgical skin peel involves removal of the skin's surface layers with mechanical devices that scrape off the skin or grind it down.

If a person desires a new nose, they can undergo a procedure that involves making incisions inside the nose to reduce scarring and then breaking and reshaping the nasal bone. Another facial cosmetic surgery is the eyelid tuck, which removes fleshy bags under the eyes.

In recent years, a cosmetic surgery called liposuction has rapidly grown in popularity. Developed in France, this procedure involves removing fat from specific areas of the body by vacuuming it out through a long metal probe that is connected to a pump.