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The Year the Lift Beat the Implant: A Surgeon Reads the 2025 ISAPS Numbers

Black and white photograph of four women of different backgrounds in long satin evening gowns facing the camera on a marble terrace above city lights at night. Illustrative image, generated, not patients. Commentary by Frank Agullo, MD, FACS.

“In my practice, I have seen breast lifts as one of the most common procedures performed.”

I dictated that in September. On September 29 the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery published its 2025 global count:

Worldwide, 2025 Count One-year change
Breast lift 1,143,862 plus 48.1 percent
Breast augmentation 1,622,639 minus 2.2 percent
Implant removal 360,594 plus 42 percent since 2021
Secondary breast surgery 592,965 28 percent ended with no implant

Eighth most common operation in the world last year. Fourth this year.

What I See in the Room

“Where the nipple sits relative to the IMF is the entire question. Above the fold leans aug alone, or aug plus a small doughnut lift for better symmetry and perkiness. BodyTite if skin is borderline. At or below the fold leans an honest mastopexy, and an implant alone in that setup will make the heaviness worse.”

That is how I answered a woman on RealSelf this spring, and it is the exam the implant was sold around for years.

What Changed

The first is the incision. “I think a lot of patients are afraid of this surgery because they feel like they’re going to need the full anchor type incision. By offering the circumareolar, or donut, lift for patients whose nipple and areola are above the inframammary fold, this can be a game changer.”

The second is what holds the lift up. “Regardless of the combination of procedures we perform, I do recommend using an internal bra with mesh support, with GalaFLEX or DuraSorb, to give us that support of the breast weight, so that we’re not just relying on skin, which has lost all its elastin and is not reliable long term.”

“The mesh supports the tissues for a period of up to two years. As it dissolves, it leaves behind collagen deposits, so the support remains there even well after the mesh has gone.”

A lift that lasts is a different product from the lift of ten years ago. The world ordered 370,000 more of them.

The Look Women Are Choosing

“A breast lift will always give a perkier look, more upper fullness, and cleavage, but it’s going to have usually a natural slope on top.”

“An implant is very predictable,” and 1.6 million women still chose one. I wrote about where the implant still belongs after Forbes asked whether one of them was the Rolls-Royce. The full read on the lift, with the exam and the cost, is on my practice site, and what nobody tells you about the lift itself is here.

Ready to Talk?

Call the office at (915) 590-7900, text us at 1-866-814-0038, or book a consultation at agulloplasticsurgery.com/appointments. #StayBeautiful

@RealDrWorldWide on Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, @Agullo on X, or @AgulloPlasticSurgery on Facebook.

Statistics: International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, ISAPS International Survey on Aesthetic/Cosmetic Procedures Performed in 2025.

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A Lift Alone Can Make You Smaller. Somebody Should Say That First.

Black and white torn-paper collage of two cut-out portraits of poised women with engraved magnolia beside a large numeral reading 4th.

Breast lift was the fourth most common cosmetic operation in the country last year. It is also the one where expectations most often go wrong, and usually in two specific ways.

First: a lift on its own does not add size

“If a patient just wants to have a breast lift, then they have to understand that they may be the same size or slightly smaller, maybe half a cup size to a cup size, because we are removing that excess skin. The breast will be perkier, but it’ll also be tighter, and it may appear smaller.”

If you want to be larger, that is a different operation.

“Of course, if they want to be larger, we will need an implant or a fat transfer to the breast. The biggest difference here is that an implant is very predictable, and fat transfer to the breast is going to be a slight change, very natural, and a little bit unpredictable in terms of how much of the fat actually stays, but we can usually count on about a cup size increase.”

Second: the upper pole

“A lot of patients having a breast lift with implants are expecting a lot of upper fullness and a very high implant placement, which is just not possible at the same time as a breast lift. A breast lift will always give a perkier look, more upper fullness, and cleavage, but it’s going to have usually a natural slope on top.”

A natural slope is the result, not a failure of the result.

The incision people are afraid of

“I think a lot of patients are afraid of this surgery because they feel like they’re going to need the full anchor type incision. By offering the circumareolar, or donut, lift for patients whose nipple and areola are above the inframammary fold, this can be a game changer.”

That is an anatomy question, settled at the consultation, not a preference.

Why I put mesh in

“Regardless of the combination of procedures we perform, I do recommend using an internal bra with mesh support, with GalaFLEX or DuraSorb, to give us that support of the breast weight, so that we’re not just relying on skin, which has lost all its elastin and is not reliable long term.”

Skin that stretched once will stretch again. It is not a load-bearing structure.

What the price actually depends on

“Using an implant and/or internal bra support mesh will increase the cost. If a procedure is going to take longer, that can increase the surgical and operative time cost. And any other procedures that we add on, like sometimes liposuction of the lateral chest with Renuvion J-Plasma, or the axilla and upper back, can increase the cost as well.”

On size

“I think the bulk of patients still use the three hundred to four hundred CC implants, which give them one to two and a half cup sizes depending on their starting point.”

Some want far more, and I offer the Mentor MemoryGel Enhance line, which runs up to 1,445cc. Others want less, under 300cc, sometimes with Motiva Preserve for a faster recovery.

“So really, I have a wide range of patients, and I like to help them achieve what they desire in a safe framework, and have a good conversation about how we can get them there.”

Consultations at Southwest Plastic Surgery in El Paso.

Call (915) 590-7900 or text 1-866-814-0038.

#StayBeautiful

Source: Commentary from Dr. Agullo’s 2026-09-07 dictation. Mentor MemoryGel Enhance ceiling of 1,445cc confirmed by Dr. Agullo 2026-09-07.