Although rhinoplasty (nose job surgery) was the most popular plastic surgery in 2020, it isn’t quite the most common plastic surgery. In the longer-term view, the most common plastic surgery procedure is breast augmentation surgery. More plastic surgery is done on the female breasts collectively than is done on any other part of the body.
Women can have their breasts lifted, enlarged, reduced, or augmented with implants, and each of those surgeries is considered and counted as a different plastic surgery procedure.
Among the many breast cosmetic surgeries available, the most popular of them by far is simply “breast augmentation” surgery, which always refers to the surgical action of placing either saline or silicone implants above or below the pectoralis muscles of the female patient in order to increase the size and projection of the breasts.
If “breast augmentation” is done with fat grafting or fat transfer rather than breast implants, that fact is always clarified in its name: “Breast augmentation with fat transfer.” If the words “breast augmentation” are used alone, they always refer to the surgical placement of saline or silicone breast implants.
Breast augmentation was the #1 most common plastic surgery procedure for 15 years, and in many of those years, it took great lead over other cosmetic surgical procedures.
And while more women have had breast augmentation surgery than any other single plastic surgery procedure in history, there is yet another surgical procedure that most people don’t realize actually just about rivals it in some years.
That procedure is liposuction surgery.
Liposuction was the fourth most commonly performed plastic surgery procedure in the latest year for which industry statistics are available, 2020.
Because liposuction is both a stand-alone procedure as well as a procedure that makes up part of other procedures, it is one of the most common plastic surgeries. Arm lift surgery, breast reduction surgery, male breast reduction surgery, the Brazilian butt lift, and more, all incorporate liposuction into them as part of accomplishing the goals of those surgeries.
Statistically, however, liposuction is counted as its own “plastic surgery procedure” when it’s done on its own. And in that sense, it typically places between about the 3rd – 5th most common plastic surgery procedure.
For 15 years in a row, breast augmentation surgery was the most common plastic surgery. Only very recently did it briefly dip from being the first-place plastic surgery procedure during the COVID-19 pandemic, as women (and men) averted their attention to facial plastic surgery procedures, probably due to the increased use of video conferencing software and because work-from-home arrangements replaced offices.
When breast augmentation was briefly no longer the top-performing plastic surgery, men and women in the US and abroad focused their attention on their faces, making rhinoplasty surgery the most popular recent plastic surgery, followed by eyelid surgery, facelift surgery, liposuction, and finally, breast augmentation surgery.
But in a standard non-pandemic year, breast augmentation surgery is the most common plastic surgery procedure performed in the United States and across the world.
[Photo by Andrea Piacquadio]
