Brandon Keim
Science

Six-Pack Abs: A Bargain for $7000 and Months of Swelling

Are six-pack abs worth days of pain, months of swelling, the risk of infection and bleeding, and $4000 to $7000 out of your bank account? Arizona plastic surgeon Aldo Benjamin Guerra recently presented a study of so-called abdominal etching at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons annual meeting. Of 32 patients, reported the Wall Street […]

Abetch
Are six-pack abs worth days of pain, months of swelling, the risk of infection and bleeding, and $4000 to $7000 out of your bank account?

Arizona plastic surgeon Aldo Benjamin Guerra recently presented a study of so-called abdominal etching at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons annual meeting. Of 32 patients, reported the Wall Street Journal's health blog,

Several had post-operative complications. Six of them had a buildup of fluid known as seroma, which can be drained with a needle. Three had scarring serious enough for Guerra to give them a shot of cortisone. And two patients needed a second surgical procedure to get the desired results.

A PubMed search shows that Guerra's study, if published, wlll be one of only a few on abdominal etching. At all of 32 patients, it's also the most comprehensive -- and though there are no concrete numbers on the number of men who've undergone this procedure, it's probably in the thousands.

This is a perfect example of how invasive plastic surgeries are generally risky and poorly understood. I'm presently working on a story about so-called injection lipolysis, in which non-FDA approved compounds are injected into fatty deposits, ostensibly melting them away, but often resulting in scarring, bloating and disfiguration. Tens of thousands of people have received the shots, but research is only beginning.

Image: AB Guerra

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