Indeed, plastic surgery for men is booming. Male clients now constitute as much as 20 percent of many plastic surgeons practices, up from 5 percent a decade ago. Pec implants actually aren’t all that new. Surgeons originally developed the procedure to correct chest deformities caused by birth defects or accidents. What is new is the variation Bircoll has created for cosmetic purposes. An incision is made in the patient’s armpit, and up to three,five-inch lozenges of silicone are placed under the chest wall to simulate muscle. “Our society puts so much emphasis on the chest,” says a 26-year-old Los Angeles fitness instructor who found that no amount of pumping iron could build up his puny pees. So he turned to Bircoll last spring. “It’s great,” he says of ! the results, but he adds that the implants don’t feel like natural muscle. “It’s not soft and pliable. It’s like touching a rib. "
Bircoll’s fee for such work is $6,500. Dr. Darryl J. Hodgkinson of Williamsburg, Va., who has filled out the chests of four recreational body-builders with custom-made implants, charges about $3,500. “These guys aren’t silly,” he says. “They’re realistic.” They’d also better be amateurs. Such surgical enhancement is illegal in professional body-building competition.
Bircoll’s procedure, which requires a general anesthetic, takes less than two hours. The first few days after surgery can be extremely painful, and movement is, limited for several weeks. Like all surgery, it carries the possibility of complications such as infection, bleeding or abnormal healing. In addition, it’s possible for the implant, which is held in place by the chest muscle, to slip. “We did have a patient whose implant slipped,” Bircoll says. “We repositioned it under local anesthesia.”
Besides the possibility of migration, surgeons say implants can cause erosion of the underlying bone. Dr. Norman M. Cole, president-elect of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, says he would not do such cosmetic work until there are some long-term studies to prove it is safe. “Will they stand up to a rigorous game of touch football?” he asks.
Chicken legs? Dr. Hale R. Tolleth, president of the California Society of Plastic Surgeons, is also skeptical. “I bet very few plastic surgeons will embrace this as a major advance in the beautification of the human race,” he says. But since women don’t have an exclusive franchise on vanity, chances are that pec implants are here to stay. In fact, surgeons are offering silicone enhancement all over the body. Tired of those chicken legs? For an additional $5,000, Dr. Bircoll will throw in a pair of plastic calf implants.
