Aesthetic Plastic Surgery on the rise!

Scottsdale – The International Master Course on Aging Skin (IMCAS) is being held this week in Paris, France. This is one of the biggest aesthetic meetings in the world and important economic news are coming from the presentation platform. According to the international experts, beauty therapies including laser treatments, breast enlargements and wrinkle-filling injections should grow 5 to 10 percent a year worldwide until 2013 (Source: Reuters).

The financial crisis had a significant effect on the number of aesthetic surgeries performed in 2009, with a drop of about 15% on average. In Europe, revenues in the medical aesthetic industry fell 15 percent to 3 billion euros (4.30 billion dollars) due to fewer surgical procedures and a 40 percent decrease in energy-based therapy equipments like ultrasound massages and laser treatments.

“Among patients it’s increasingly fashionable to want to keep one’s facial expressions intact rather than opt for a more drastic change in looks through surgery,” said plastic surgeon and IMCAS director Benjamin Ascher. “Medicalized beauty treatments can no longer be seen as a pure luxury,” Laurent Brones, business development manager at Symatese Biomaterials, a French maker of collagen.

Medical spas still have ample room for development in Europe. “Europe lags behind compared to the United States,” Dr. Ascher said. “The potential is huge.” According to this article, revenues from breast surgery should recover again, growing between 5 and 10 percent annually through 2013, after a decline of 15 percent last year.

Women represented 91 percent of plastic surgery patients in 2008, according to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. IMCAS meets every year in Paris, gathering aesthetic surgeons and dermatologists. The four-day conference began Friday.