Dallas — An abdominoplasty technique using progressive tension sutures reduces complications and may eliminate the need for surgical drains, according to results of a large study by a father-and-son surgical team.

Todd Pollock, M.D., and his father, Harlan Pollock, M.D., both of the Texas Institute for Surgery, conducted a retrospective chart review of 597 consecutive abdominoplasty cases, PR Newswire reports. All of the patients were from the Pollocks’ practice in Dallas and Allen, Texas, and had an average age of 46. The majority of the study participants were female.

The surgeons used progressive tension sutures (PTS) in abdominoplasty procedures to reduce the incidence of seroma without using drains.

In 63.7 percent of the procedures, abdominoplasty was combined with another procedure. In 67 percent of cases, liposuction was performed on the abdominoplasty flap or an adjacent area, according to the study abstract. The average amount of fat aspirate was 953 mL. No drains were used.

The rate of local complications was 4.2 percent, and all but one of these complications were minor. No systemic complications related to PTS were reported and there were no reports of venous thromboembolisms.

“Our technique sews the tissue back together, closing the space and leaving no room for fluid to accumulate,” the surgeons reported. “More importantly, progressive tension sutures hold tissue together with abdominal movement during the healing process. The need for drains is eliminated, which speeds recovery, decreases cost and improves scarring.”

The Pollocks have been using the PTS technique since the early 1980s, PR Newswire reports. The study was published in Aesthetic Surgery Journal.

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Cairo — Soft dorsal nasal implants have better patient satisfaction scores and fewer complications than hard implants, according to results of a new Egyptian study.

The study, conducted by researchers with Cairo University, examined 21 women and seven men who underwent augmentation rhinoplasty. Fifteen patients received hard implants and 13 received soft. Hard implants included conchal and septal cartilage grafts and Medpor. Soft implants consisted of diced auricular cartilage wrapped in Surgicel sheets, dermofat blocks and rolls of Prolene mesh.

In postoperative questionnaires, patients reported a 100 percent satisfaction rate with soft implants. Patients receiving hard implants reported a dissatisfaction rate of 33 percent.

“The authors recommend soft implants for both aesthetic and reconstructive surgeries because of their better ability to achieve a dorsum with a smoother contour and pad,” the researchers wrioe in the study abstract. “Soft implants have fewer complications and higher satisfaction rates and can be applied for most indications using both closed and open methods.”

The study was published in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

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Herlev, Denmark — Women generally rate the appearance of their breasts as “good” or “very good” following breast reduction surgery, but plastic surgeons tend to be more critical of the outcomes, a new study finds.

In the study, 125 women who had undergone reduction mammaplasty rated their cosmetic results on a questionnaire, GlobeNewswise reports. Data was gathered at six months and again one year after surgery. Meanwhile, plastic surgeons rated the outcomes using standard before-and-after photographs. Surgeon ratings were made by plastic surgeons in the Danish public healthcare system, as well as by a private practitioner in plastic surgery.

In general, the women rated their results higher than did the surgeons. At six months, nearly 90 percent of women rated their cosmetic outcomes as “good” or “very good,” a rating that decreased to 80 percent at the one-year mark. Meanwhile, surgeon ratings were “good” to “very good” in about 75 percent of cases. The private practitioner was more critical than the public surgeons, rating the results “good” to “very good” in about 60 percent of the cases.

Satisfaction also was related to information about the procedure. “The better the information and the higher the confidence level, the better was the outcome,” the authors wrote. “One must not underestimate the importance of factors like preoperative information about the surgery and complications, together with proper and qualified care.”

The study, conducted by researchers at Herlev Hospital, was one of the first to evaluate the cosmetic outcomes after breast-reduction surgery, GlobeNewswire reports. The study was published in the August issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

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New York — A New York nonprofit organization offers free corrective surgery to teens who have been bullied, reigniting the debate over whether parents should allow their children to undergo cosmetic procedures.   

CNN recently featured a story about a nonprofit organization called Little Baby Face that provided funds for a $40,000 otoplasty procedure for a teenage girl who had been taunted about the size of her ears, SFGate.com reports. The surgeon also reduced the size of the girl’s nose and altered her chin to create a more balanced face.

According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the number of teens getting plastic surgery has increased by 30 percent over the past decade. Otoplasty was the most frequently performed cosmetic procedure in young people under age 18 in 2011, ASAPS reports, with 11,268 total procedures. There also were 4,830 breast augmentation procedures performed on women age 18 and younger.

The ASAPS has noted that most experts agree cosmetic procedures can be beneficial for the physical and emotional development of appropriately selected teenage patients.

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Los Angeles — A social media management firm has launched a specialized marketing program that provides online marketing support to cosmetic, aesthetic and reconstructive surgery practices.

PRWeb.com reports that the firm offers complete social media management to generate new clients and referral business for such practices. The service entails oversight and management of top social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

 “Referrals are the lifeblood of many cosmetic surgery practices, and given that social media is the ultimate referral platform, sites like Facebook and Pinterest are the perfect marketing tools for these practices,” PRWeb quotes Craig Collins, Maximize Social Media senior vice president, as saying.

In addition to social media management, Maximize, which is based in Los Angeles and Lakeland, Fla., will also manage and optimize Google Plus Local pages for cosmetic surgeons. The company says the convergence of social and search sites makes it necessary for businesses to optimize their Google Plus Local pages to effectively reach target audiences.

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Dallas — Certain types of wound complications are more frequent in men than in women who undergo body contouring procedures after weight loss surgeries, according to new research results.

The study, conducted by researchers with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, compared complications between men and women in a large database of patients undergoing body contouring, defined as several different types of plastic surgery procedures to remove excess fat and skin in patients with massive weight loss, usually after bariatric surgery, GlobeNewswire reports.

Of the 481 patients in the database, 10 percent were male. The most common body contouring procedures in men were surgery to remove excess tissue in the chest, genital area, back and arms. Women were more likely to undergo surgery on the upper arms, thighs and buttocks.

The overall complication rate was 42 percent. Hematomas occurred in 14.6 percent of men versus 3.5 percent of women, seromas in 25 percent of men versus 13 percent of women.

With adjustment for other factors, the risk of hematomas was nearly four times higher in men, while seroma risk was nearly three times higher. As a result of these risks, men had a higher overall complication rate. Men represent a minority of body contouring patients, but there has been a significant increase in males undergoing lower body lifts and abdominoplasty over the past decade.

“Men who are considering body contouring surgery should be advised that they are at an increased risk of postoperative hematoma and seroma formation,” the authors wrote, adding that further research may identify factors contributing to the higher risk of wound complications in men and thus increase the safety of body contouring surgery.

The study was published in the August issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

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Philadelphia — A woman has been charged with murder in the death of a British woman who was injected with silicone in a Philadelphia hotel room last year.

According to the Philadelphia district attorney’s office, Padge Victoria Windslowe, 42, already is in custody on separate charges stemming from another alleged illegal cosmetic procedure also involving a silicone injection.

Claudia Aderotimi, 20, died in February 2011 from a pulmonary embolism due to complications from a silicone injection to her buttocks, the district attorney’s office states. Ms. Aderotimi she had come to the United States from England after seeing an online ad for body enhancements by Ms. Windslowe. Ms. Aderotimi reportedly paid $1,800 for buttocks enhancements that were performed in a hotel room, then experienced chest pains shortly after the silicone injection and died a short time later.

Ms. Windslowe has been charged with third-degree murder in Ms. Aderotimi's death, along with conspiracy, reckless endangerment, possessing an instrument of crime and unauthorized practice of medicine, CNN reports.

Ms. Windslowe was initially arrested in March before she was scheduled to host a “pumping party,” at which people pay for illegal silicone injections.

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New Orleans — Liposuction can provide raw materials for engineers to grow small-diameter blood vessels, new research suggests.

Scientists with the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering found that adult stem cells extracted from autologous fat tissue, then cultured into sheets and rolled into tiny vessels, performed as well as natural vessels on elastic contractility, MedPage Today reports.

Currently, internal mammary arteries provide the best conduit for bypassing blocked arteries in the heart, for instance, but there are often too few of them to be used for multivessel procedures. Synthetic grafts are an option, but only for vessels 6 mm or larger.

Tissue engineering could overcome these limitations, researchers said. A couple of tablespoons of fat from a liposuction procedure can provide enough stem cells to seed a new vessel.

The stem cells are differentiated into smooth muscle cells in the lab, then “seeded” onto a flat sheet of decellularized collagen from discarded placenta, which is a material approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Once the patient’s cells colonize the scaffold, it’s rolled into a thin tube of the desired diameter. The process takes three to four weeks to complete.

MedPage Today reports that the engineered vessel’s thickness and architecture matched that of a porcine coronary artery in a histological analysis, and that it performed better than the porcine vessel in a tensile strength test for elasticity.

The research was presented at the American Heart Association’s Basic Cardiovascular Sciences meeting in New Orleans.

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Sacramento, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law a bill designed to curtail the unlicensed practice of medicine, particularly medical spas and similar aesthetic procedure clinics.

The new law significantly increases fines and jail time for anyone found guilty of illegally operating or helping to illegally operate a medical business, the Sacramento Business Journal reports. Medical spas that provide nonsurgical cosmetic procedures such as laser skin resurfacing, cellulite treatments and dermal fillers in surgery centers and doctors’ offices are the law’s primary targets.

Under existing state law, a medical doctor must own at least 51 percent of the business and the medspa personnel who treat patients must be supervised by a medical doctor. Violations are counted as a misdemeanor that carries a fine of between $200 and $1,200, a 60- to 80-day jail sentence or both.

The new law raises the fine to a maximum of $50,000 or double the amount of fraud, whichever is greater, and calls for a maximum sentence of two to five years in state prison. The penalties can apply not just to the licensee, as was the case under the old law, but also to the business or corporate entity.

“Too often, our members are treating horrific complications such as severe burns, missed skin cancer diagnosis and permanent scarring, suffered by patients at the hands of inappropriately trained, inadequately supervised individuals in illegal medical-spa settings,” the Journal quotes Susan Weinkle, M.D., president of the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery Association, as saying. “Providing the state of California with adequate enforcement tools is critical to preventing future unnecessary patient harm and consumer fraud.”

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Hong Kong — Attitudes toward patients who have had cosmetic procedures are widely negative outside of Western cultures, researchers have found.

Despite the increasing popularity of cosmetic surgery globally, little is known about how patients are socially evaluated, leading investigators with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to evaluate attitudes toward these patients based on two surveys in Hong Kong, Japan and the United States.

According to study authors, the primary objective was to document attitudes toward cosmetic surgery patients. Researchers also sought to identify the role culture plays in these attitudes.

The researchers worked from three hypotheses: that these attitudes are largely negative, that the attitudes are more negative in Asian cultures than in Western ones, and that social contact mediates the cultural differences in attitudes. Responses to the two surveys appeared to support the hypotheses.

“Across these cultures, attitudes toward cosmetic surgery patients were predominantly negative,” the study abstract stated. “Participants ascribed more negative attributes to cosmetic surgery patients and found cosmetic surgery not acceptable. Also, participants in Hong Kong and Japan were not willing to form social relationships, particularly intimate ones, with these patients.”

The study notes that attitudes were less negative in the United States than in Hong Kong and Japan, partly because social contact, which is known to reduce negativity in attitudes toward cosmetic surgery patients, is more prevalent in the United States.

“As technology is increasingly advanced, it is no longer a dream for anyone to artificially construct his or her beauty,” the authors wrote. “However, doing so may incur some social costs. How these costs vary across cultures, how cosmetic surgery patients manage these social costs, and how these costs affect these patients’ subjective well-being are important topics for future research.”

The study was published in the Journal of Social Psychology.

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