The authoritative industry report on national plastic surgery numbers is two years behind its once-typical schedule.
The latest report available covers procedure popularity, prices, and other demographics for the year 2020.
If events were typical, reports for 2021 and 2022 should be out now.
The pandemic, pauses on elective surgeries, and proposals on new ways to measure the numbers—including updating projections to include more physicians nationwide—are the likely causes of the delay.
| Year Covered | Report Released |
| 2015 | Feb 25, 2016 |
| 2016 | March 1, 2017 |
| 2017 | March 1, 2018 |
| 2018 | March 11, 2019 |
| 2019 | June 25, 2020 |
| 2020 | April 27, 2021 |
| 2021 | Not available. |
| 2022 | Not available. |
“Release of the ASPS annual procedural statistics for 2021 was delayed due to factors inhibiting the statistical extrapolation of available survey data during what was clearly an atypical year for aesthetic surgery procedure volumes…. The data collection and analysis process for the annual statistics report is being reconfigured, and ASPS expects to release its complete statistics report in 2023.”
Inaugural ASPS Insights and Trends Report, June 2022
The report, by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), has been long regarded as the most accurate and comprehensive picture of plastic surgery in the United States.
The reports typically range from 20-30 pages and cover how many people had which cosmetic procedure, at what age, and at what cost.
ASPS is the oldest and largest professional society of plastic surgeons in the world. Its statistical data goes back to 1992, and its annual reports have been issued each year since 2005.
Year 2019 Report Retracted and Replaced
The Society released in June 2020 its annual statistics report for 2019, before later retracting and replacing it with a summary of key figures.
Aside from the report’s length and format, most of its key figures had also changed significantly, as the Society was working to make the report more accurate.
“Projections have been updated to reflect a more comprehensive set of Board-Certified physicians performing these procedures,” Society leadership said.
Breast Augmentation Trends and Cancer Concerns Hang in Balance
The break in available reports is most significant for breast augmentation surgery, long the world’s most popular cosmetic procedure, until 2020.
In 2019, the reach and impact of patient advocacy groups grew significantly, beginning with a two-day FDA panel on the safety of plastic surgery devices that centered on implants and included a number of stories from women who said their breast implants had harmed them.
Absent the most authoritative report, other numbers alternatively suggest that breast augmentation surgeries have since both risen and fallen in popularity.
Data that points to a drop in breast augmentations or interest includes an interim ASPS report listing breast augmentation as the third of five most popular procedures, breast implant maker Ideal Implant Inc liquidating last month, and breast implant maker Sientra nearly disqualifying for the NYSE before a reverse stock split raised the going rate of its share price 10 fold.
Data that points to rise in breast augmentations includes a 2021 annual report from the Aesthetic Society, which reports a 15 percent increase in the surgeries, and a 2021 report from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) which reports a 3.8 percent increase in breast augmentation surgeries.
Along with the increase, both societies note that liposuction replaced breast augmentation as the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure, with ISAPS attributing the shift to the pandemic as well as to “growing concern about the implants’ links to cancer,” according to CNN.
“The lower increase in breast augmentation, and related increase in implant removals, also reflects our experience following publication of reports on BIA-ALCL in the preceding year.”
Dr. Gianluca Campiglio, Global Survey Editor, International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, Jan. 9, 2023
“The lower increase in breast augmentation, and related increase in implant removals… reflects our experience following publication of reports on BIA-ALCL in the preceding year,” ISAPS’ Global Survey Editor, Dr. Gianluca Campiglio, wrote in a release.
Aesthetic Society leadership has been developing what should prove to be a more accurate way to measure national plastic surgery numbers, called the Aesthetic Neural Network.
Annual reports from both Societies aim to measure procedures not only performed by its member surgeons, but by all plastic surgeons in the United States.