US News

SPIKE IN NIPS & ‘BUCKS’

The economy sagged, but more Americans have boosted their bottom line by shelling out for cosmetic plastic surgery, from boob jobs to butt implants, according to a new report.

There were nearly 12 million cosmetic plastic-surgery procedures last year, a 7 percent hike over 2006, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons said yesterday.

Americans paid $12 billion for more than 1.8 million cosmetic surgical procedures – with breast augmentation the top choice among women, who make up 91 percent of patients – and for nearly 10 million minimally invasive procedures.

The in-your-face star of the minimally invasive category was Botox – with 4.6 million procedures, up 13 percent from 2006.

Nearly a quarter of all the nipping and tucking was performed on minority patients, up 13 percent from the year before, the statistics showed.

“It illustrates the fact that cosmetic plastic surgery has become part of mainstream American life,” said ASPS president Dr. Richard D’Amico.

“The numbers are up in African Americans, up in Hispanics and up in Asians. [Cosmetic plastic surgery] crosses all age groups and ethnic groups. We’re treating people in their 20s and people in their 80s,” he said,

Over one million (1,011,000) Hispanics, up 8 percent from 2006, and 847,800 African Americans, also up 8 percent, had cosmetic plastic surgery last year. Asian Americans were up 26 percent to 767,800.

The big news is that facelifts, which had been on the decline since 2000 because of “the rise of injectables and fillers” like Botox and Restylane, are making a comeback – up 14 percent for women and 16 percent for men over 2006, said D’Amico.

“If you have jowls the size of Kansas, you can’t expect any injection on earth to move them back where they belong,” said D’Amico, an assistant clinical professor of plastic surgery at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, adding that “the best approach is to have both.”

A disturbing finding was that the number of reconstructive plastic surgery procedures, such as tumor removal and hand surgery, was down 2 percent over the year before – which D’Amico said could be due to “insurers denying claims and stating medically necessary procedures are cosmetic.”

rita.delfiner@nypost.com