Chin implants are fastest-growing cosmetic surgery procedure

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported Monday that chin implantation -- a.k.a. the “chinplant” -- was the fastest-growing cosmetic plastic surgery procedure in 2011.

“The chin and the jawline are among the first areas to show signs of aging,” Dr. Malcolm Z. Roth, the organization’s president, said in a statement. “People are considering chin augmentation as a way to restore their youthful look just like a facelift or eyelid surgery.”

Overall, chin implants were up 71% over 2010, with procedures split more or less evenly between men (who had 10,593 of the surgeries) and women (who had 10,087.) A substantial number of the “chinplants” -- nearly 8,500 -- were performed on patients 55 years old and over.

The plastic surgeons’ group, which represents surgeons certified in the U.S. and in Canada, suggested that getting ahead in the workforce was a key driver of the uptick in chin surgeries, as well as jumps in other procedures such as lip augmentation (up 49%,) cheek implants (up 47%) and the old standby, the face-lift (which crept up 5% to nearly 120,000 procedures performed, breaking into the top five procedures for the first time since 2004.

The top four surgeries reported were breast augmentation (over 300,000 procedures performed) nose jobs (over 240,000,) liposuction (over 200,000) and eyelid surgery (nearly 200,000.)

Among “minimally-invasive” procedures, botox was king, with more than 5 1/2 million procedures performed.

Last year, the society reported that men were getting more plastic surgeries than they had in the past -- though women still accounted for the lion’s share (91%).

View 2011 surgery statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.