Introductory Chapter: New Horizons in Body Contouring

*Alexandro Aguilera*

### **1. Introduction**

The history of humanity and its scientific evolution cannot be described without pointing out the innate desire of our species to observe our surroundings, accompanied by the need to achieve better and consistent results through the invention of new technologies and devices. In the present days, these advances have come along also with the evolution of how patients see themselves, being more demanding than before, looking for less inflammation, shorter recovery periods, and natural and long-lasting results, following a modern vision of beauty mostly influenced by social media and ethnic parameters.

Regarding body contouring surgery, we have witnessed a massive change in the last few years, not only because of the cultural change in how patients see themselves and what types of bodies they are looking for, but also because of the new techniques and devices that have helped achieve those type of results modern patients want, and also because of a change of our own mentality we as surgeons have [1].

#### **2. Cultural influence and patient expectations**

First of all, the cultural changes have been very important to get us where we are standing nowadays. In the past, the type of results the patients often wanted was massively influenced by TV shows, movies, and magazines. With the boom of silicone breast implants, patients wanted to go as high in volume as they could, without considering the final shape and how they fit their general body contour as a whole, nor the effect of the weight will have in the breast, with the natural descent that comes in the following years. Nowadays, our patients have become more aware of their own bodies, looking for more natural and athletic looking results that can relate to the type of body of each patient, shifting our main vision in breast surgery influenced also with the type of activities modern female patients do, and looking for better shape and long-lasting results rather than just volume [2].

The same happened with their expectations from other body contouring procedures such as abdominoplasty and liposuction. From my point of view, this is one of the areas in plastic surgery with the most evolution in recent years. The general idea of the patients was just to take out volume from some areas, without volumizing others, or in other instances just remove the skin excess generated by pregnancies or by important changes in weight [3].
