A Decade of Tummy Tucks: 5 Superlative Stats From the American Society of Plastic Surgeons

(July 27) -- You just can't stop modern science -- especially if it's the science of plastic surgery. The $10 billion industry (that's the U.S. alone) has grown exponentially from its early days. With data collected since 2000, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recently released its annual report documenting a decade in the field's evolution. Among other findings: Liposuction is down, and dog bite repair has remained generally consistent.

Surge(ry) Desk breaks out the scalpel to present the five most interesting statistics from ASPS report.

1. It's true what they say about L.A. Maybe having Hollywood in your jurisdiction somewhat skews the stats: The Mountain/Pacific region led the U.S. with 3.6 million total procedures.

2. Tummy tucks are in. Although it ranks fifth on the Top Surgical Cosmetic Procedures list (115,191 operations), the tummy tuck enjoyed the highest increase in frequency since 2000, up 84 percent, with a steep national average surgeon's fee of $4,216.

3. You are never too old, or too young, to get a nose job. Of the report's five age categories -- 13- to 19-year-olds, 20- to 29-year-olds, 30- to 39-year-olds, 40- to 55-year-olds, and 55 plus -- nose-reshaping (255,972 operations in 2009) is the lone procedure to appear in the top five surgical cosmetic procedures across all ages.

4. Everybody's doing it. Botulinum toxin type A -- aka Botox -- was the overwhelming leader in cosmetic minimally invasive procedures (procedures that require zero or local anesthetic) with an astounding 4,795,357 procedures in 2009. That's over 3 million more occurrences than any other operation listed on the report.

5. Sagging trend lines for some procedures obscured by growth of others. While cosmetic procedures are up 69 percent overall since 2000, that's mostly because of a 99 percent increase in minimally invasive operations. Cosmetic surgical procedures, such as breast augmentation and liposuction, are actually down 20 percent since the start of the decade.