Trends in Arm Lift Surgery

Arm lift surgery is beginning to become a popular procedure among women. Excess fat and sagging, and also the hanging skin on the upper arms are common cosmetic issues and most women are trying to find ways to deal with these problems through cosmetic surgery.

Patients go through arm lift surgery or Brachioplasty in order to address the problem of sagging arms. According to the data from ASAPS, there were 21,870 arm lift procedures performed in 2007, an increase of 769% since 1997.

Dr. Daniel Morello, a board-certified plastic surgeon in White Plains, NY, observed that when liposuction first became popular about ten years ago, there was a decrease in the number of Brachioplasty procedures being performed. Today, liposuction is usually one part of the procedure.

In order to get the best out of the procedure, it is important to note that every patient has different needs so it is therefore necessary to custom-tailor the surgery according the specific needs of the patient. There are patients who might only want to have a more muscular arm, so liposuction might be the only operation needed. And there are also some who have a lot of hanging skin so a traditional arm lift is necessary to produce great results.

Traditional arm lift surgery involved the removal of excess skin and fat, requiring the surgeon to make an incision from the armpit to the elbow. This can lead to a long and undesirable scar.

Obviously, this is not a very good thing for patients. So in order to address these concerns, innovations in Brachioplasty techniques are being discussed by leading experts. One new approach to the upper arm lift surgery is minimal incision Brachioplasty, which requires a much smaller incision hidden in the armpit.

"Minimal incision is a new and modern approach to the age-old problem of the sagging upper arm. Patient satisfaction is very high with the hidden scar technique," said Dr. Reed, a plastic surgeon in New York City, who has had both a long and successful track record with this technique.

However, as every patient has different needs and different responses to the surgery, there is always a trade=off. “The procedure performed depends on the patient and how much excess skin needs to be removed," concluded Dr. Morello.