New survey results show a strong recovery after the pandemic and a continuing rise in aesthetic surgery procedures, with a 33% increase over the past four years.
Earlier this year, The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) released the results of its annual Global Survey on aesthetic procedures. Overall, there was a 19.3% increase in procedures performed by plastic surgeons in 2021, with more than 12.8 million surgical and 17.5 million non-surgical procedures performed worldwide.
The 19.3% increase shows recovery from 2020 (which saw an overall drop of -1.8% in all procedures and -10.9% in surgical procedures due to the impact of COVID-19 on global practice).
The report shows a continuing rise in aesthetic surgery, with a 33.3% increase over the last four years.
Both surgical and non-surgical procedures increase since the last survey (18.5% and 19.9%, respectively), with a significant increase of 54.4% in non-surgical procedures in the past four years.
According to Dr Gianluca Campiglio, Global Survey Editor and plastic surgeon in Italy, ‘The data clearly reflect the experience of recovery from the previous year’s negative impact of COVID-19 on aesthetic procedures, and numbers now exceed the pre- pandemic ones.
‘We noticed an interesting increase in surgical procedures related to so-called “body contouring”, such as liposuction, which is now ranked as the most common procedure, ahead of breast augmentation for the first time in many years, and also a similar emerging trend for abdominoplasty, thigh lift and buttock augmentation. The lower increase in breast augmentation, and related increase in implant removals, also reflects our experience following publication of reports on BIA-ALCL in the preceding year.’
Most performed aesthetic procedures
Liposuction was the most common cosmetic surgical procedure in 2021, with more than 1.9 million procedures and a 24.8% increase, overtaking breast augmentation (+3.8%). The top five most popular surgical procedures were liposuction, breast augmentation, eyelid surgery, rhinoplasty and abdominoplasty.
The top five non-surgical procedures are botulinum toxin, hyaluronic acid, hair removal, skin tightening and fat reduction. (Figure 1)
While breast augmentation remains the most common surgical procedure for women, this procedure had only a slight increase of +0.5% in the past four years. By contrast, surgery to remove implants increased by 22.6% (+49.6% in the past four years), and breast lifts by 31.4% in the past year.
Procedures with biggest increases
Total procedures increased by 19.1% (Figure 2). Surgical body procedures increased more than any other section (+26.9%), boosted by an increase of 24.8% in liposuction procedures for a total of 1.9 million procedures performed in the last reporting year. Abdominoplasties were also up 29.5%, breast lifts up by 31.4%, and lower body lifts up by 35.6%.
Thigh lifts showed the highest growth for all surgical procedures (+53.1%). Buttock lifts and buttock augmentation have also increased by 45.7% and 40.5% respectively since 2017.
Face and head procedures increased by 14.8%, with eyelid surgery being the most common procedure, and the most popular surgical procedure among men.
There has been a notable increase in hyaluronic acid injections (+30.3%) and ISAPS Survey Editor Dr Campiglio reflects that this may relate to the growing use of this product in other parts of the body such as the buttock.
Most common procedures: women vs men
As noted above, breast augmentation continues to be the most commonly performed aesthetic surgery for women, despite only a modest increase of 0.5% in the past four years. The other most common surgical procedures in women remain liposuction and eyelid surgery.
Among men, gynaecomastia now tops the list of surgical procedures, followed by eyelid surgery and liposuction.
Overall, women represented 86.1% of all surgical procedures and 86.5% percent of all non-surgical procedures – a modest change from the last pre-COVID survey results in 2019 in which women made up 86.5% of surgical and 87.2% of non-surgical procedures.
(Figure 3)
Most common procedures by age
Most breast augmentations (53.1% of the total) and rhinoplasties (63.7%) took place in 19- to 34-year-olds, whereas botulinum toxin injectables were most popular among those aged 35 to 50 (47.2% of the total).
Botulinum toxin injectables amongst 19- to 34-year-olds represented 24.2% of total procedures, an increase of 2.5% compared with pre-COVID ISAPS survey results in 2019.
(Figure 4)
Country statistics
The USA once again performed the most procedures worldwide (24.1% of the total), with 30.4% of all non- surgical procedures and 15.5% of all surgical procedures, followed by Brazil (8.9%) and Japan (5.7%). (Figure 5)
The USA and Brazil are estimated to have the most plastic surgeons, with more than 30% of the world’s total. Asian countries follow with China in third place, Japan in fourth, and South Korea in fifth. Australia, with an estimated 450 specialist plastic surgeons, make up 1% of the world’s plastic surgeons.
Surgical procedures continue to be performed primarily in hospitals (43.5% worldwide) or office facilities (35.6%). The countries seeing the highest proportion of foreign patients are Turkey, Colombia, Mexico and Thailand. AMP
