15 Dec Cosmetic surgery & aesthetic medicine 2017 – these were the trends

Results of the 10th DGÄPC patient survey

As a facial surgeon, I dedicate myself primarily to a very specific area of aesthetic plastic surgery and, unlike many plastic surgeons in Germany, I pursue an interdisciplinary approach to aesthetic medicine. Nevertheless, I always follow the publications of the German Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (DGÄPC), of which my father was one of the founders, with great interest. The DGÄPC has been conducting extensive surveys among its members’ patients for ten years now in order to gain insights into patients’ wishes as well as current trends in the field. I took a closer look at the recently presented data.

The face is becoming more of a focus for patients

The relative decline in breast corrections is particularly striking when looking at the most popular aesthetic plastic surgery among Germans. As a result, other body contouring procedures, not least facial surgery, are gaining in importance. Demand for these in particular appears to have grown somewhat more strongly than for body corrections in the past year. Eyelid correction, which was requested by 14.1 percent of patients, led the statistics for the first time in many years. Also among the top ten are other classic facial surgery procedures such as facelifts (8 percent), lip correction (6.5 percent) and rhinoplasty (3.7 percent). If only male patients are considered, ear correction is also included.

Importance of non-invasive measures

However, patients come to the practices and clinics more often for smaller, gentler treatments than for major plastic surgery. This is also shown by the current DGÄPC statistics, although I believe that injection treatments are still somewhat underrepresented here. However, this may also be due to the fact that patients who only visit the doctor for wrinkle treatment do not have the patience to take part in a patient survey. Nevertheless, wrinkle treatment with botulinum toxin (“Botox treatment”) tops the overall table and is therefore even more popular than the most common cosmetic operations. This is closely followed by wrinkle injections with hyaluronic acid-based fillers, which incidentally are still much more popular with female patients than with men. If you rank the most common non-surgical procedures in the top ten plastic surgeries, as the DGÄPC did this year, even wrinkle injections with the body’s own fat make it into the table.

Outlook: Minimally invasive aesthetic treatments

It can be added that the new statistics also show the ratio of non-surgical to surgical measures in aesthetic plastic surgery. According to the study, almost one in three treatments (30.8 percent) carried out by an aesthetic plastic surgeon in Germany last year was a so-called gentle treatment that did not involve a scalpel. This may only provide an orientation (as I said, I estimate the proportion to be even higher), but it shows how important non-invasive treatments have become in what is actually a surgical specialty. I assume that this importance will increase significantly in the coming years.