A famous plastic surgeon from the second half of the 20th century was Brazilian, and he invented the Brazilian Butt Lift.

I often receive questions about the origins of the procedure name for fat grafting to buttocks during buttock augmentation, otherwise known as the Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL). Does it really come from Brazil? Surprisingly, the answer is yes, and plastic surgery is a major industry in Brazil, which has more plastic surgeons per capita than the United States. (Warning: I do not recommend traveling abroad for your Brazilian Butt Lift procedure. While this procedure is very safe when performed by a board-certified plastic surgeon, it is possible for an untrained practitioner to cause serious, even life-threatening, complications, which do occur regularly outside the United States but rarely domestically, when performed by a board-certified plastic surgeon.)

Several surgeons experimented with grafting fat to the buttocks, but the credit for the procedure’s invention is usually given to Brazilian plastic surgeon Dr. Ivo Pitanguy. The author of more than 2000 peer-reviewed medical studies, Dr. Pitanguy is arguably the most famous plastic surgeon from Brazil and has made wide-ranging contributions to the field of aesthetic plastic surgery. He became a celebrity in his native Brazil, owned an island where he performed his cosmetic surgery, and died one day after carrying the Olympic flame through Rio de Janeiro in 2016 at 93 years of age.

Dr. Pitanguy first described a related surgical technique to correct buttock ptosis or sag in a 1964 edition of the well-regarded medical journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Other surgeons also experimented with buttock implant placement in the latter decades of the 20th century, at first using breast implants in the buttocks. Fat grafting to the buttocks, the modern day Brazilian Butt Lift, gained more widespread practice in the 1980s. Dr. Pitanguy published research on aesthetic surgery of the gluteal region in 1971 and 1984, and we found reference to other surgeons using the fat grafting technique starting in 1985.

However, before the year 2000, the procedure was relatively uncommon. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons only began keeping statistics on it in 2000. Since then and especially after 2010, buttock augmentation has seen an explosive growth in popularity. Arguably due to celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian, aesthetic surgery ideals have shifted towards larger, fuller buttocks in recent years, with a research study in June 2016 in the journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery formalizing that finding. (You may view the study here and here.)

Buttock augmentation is one of my favorite procedures to perform, and if you are interested in this procedure, I look forward to seeing you in the office!

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