India ranks 4th as plastic surgery hot spot: Survey

The statistics revealed that a total of 683,160,or 8 per cent,surgical and 211,540,or 2.4 per cent,nonsurgical procedures were carried out by Indian doctors last year.

However,the US topped the list with 17.5 per cent of all procedures being performed there,followed by Brazil with 14.3 per cent and China with 12.7 per cent. Mexico ranked the fifth,accounting for 4.8 per cent of the total procedures performed worldwide.

“It is no surprise to me that the US has the largest number of aesthetic procedures,and same with Brazil,” ISAPS President Foad Nahai,a plastic surgeon in Atlanta,said in a release.

“But countries like China and India with emerging economies are generating a lot wealth and as that wealth is passed around,people are choosing to their spend discretionary income on aesthetic procedures.”

According to the ISAPS survey,the types of procedures that people are opting for differs among countries.

While liposuction representing 18.8 per cent of all surgical procedures,remained the top choice for people worldwide,breast augmentation was the second best choice with 17 per cent opting for it.

Blepharoplasty (upper or lower eyelid lift) was third best choice at 13.5 per cent,while rhinoplasty – nose reshaping — was fourth at 9.4 per cent followed by abdominoplasty,or Tummy Tuck,at 7.3 per cent.

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. India remained at fourth position in all these surgical procedures.

The survey also noted that the number of non surgical procedures performed by plastic surgeons actually topped surgical procedures,reflecting both “advances in cosmetic surgery innovation and the desirability of less expensive treatments”.

“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,” it said. The top five non surgical procedures were: toxins or neuromodulators injections — Botox,Dysport — (at 32.7 per cent),hyaluronic acid injections (20.1 per cent),laser hair removal (13.1 per cent),followed by autologous fat injections — which involves taking a patient’s fat from one location and transferring it in the same patient in another location – and IP Laser treatment.

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

Dr Jan Poell of Switzerland,the incoming President of ISAPS,said the survey represents the first credible and reliable baseline of information in the field.

“This is valuable information that will be used by medical professionals and media as an indispensable tool for calculating developments within our speciality and general trends,long before governments or industry have amassed this data.”