With proper patient selection, abdominoplasty can be safely performed in patients 60 years and older, according to a study in Aesthetic Surgery Journal that compared the safety and complication rates of the procedure in a younger patient cohort to an older population group.

โ€œRecent studies suggest that age may independently increase the risk of complications following abdominoplasty,โ€ says co-author James Zins, M.D., a plastic surgeon and chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at Cleveland Clinic Foundation. โ€œHowever, these studies lack comprehensive information about the procedure.โ€

Given that older individuals are seeking cosmetic surgery in growing numbers, and that abdominoplasty carries a greater risk than other cosmetic procedures, โ€œwe felt this topic deserved further evaluation,โ€ Dr. Zins tells The Aesthetic Channel.

This is not the first time that the Clinicโ€™s plastic surgery department has assessed the safety of a cosmetic procedure in the elderly. โ€œWe previously published a study that demonstrated that with proper selection, patients 65 years and older could undergo facelift surgery, with a risk similar to that of a younger patient population,โ€ Dr. Zins says.

The current study retrospectively reviewed abdominoplasty performed between 2010 and 2015. The 129 patients were divided into two groups: 59 years of age and younger (n = 86) or at least 60 years old (n = 43).

โ€œWe examined major, minor, local and systemic complications occurring before and after 30 days of surgery,โ€ Dr. Zins says. โ€œThe main findings of our study were that with careful patient selection, abdominoplasty can be safely performed on older age patients, with a complication rate that approaches the younger age population.โ€

The study found there were no meaningful differences in the occurrence of major local/systemic and minor local/systemic complications in the two age groups.