Christopher Chung, M.D.
American Board of Plastic Surgery
Chief Medical Officer
Sono Bello

The incidence of liposuction for men is increasing by approximately 10% per year.  Over 1,000,000 procedures are being performed on them every year. Males are becoming an ever more significant clinical subset. Awareness of gender-specific considerations is relevant.

While the overall perioperative experience for men is very similar to that of women, there are important differences in anatomic sites and local tissue properties.

When considering the top liposuction areas for men, it usually starts with the “love handles” (similar to hips in women).

Like with women, the upper and lower abdomen is one of the most common areas requested by men for treatment. Additionally, the flanks which are classically broken into the hips and waist because of their contour nuances for women, are also addressed in men but are more consolidated centrally as the “love handle”. Another area of increasing demand for men Is the chest. Gynecomastia, which literally means feminizing changes of the male chest region, is receiving more clinical interest for treatment. Multiple modalities exist to include combinations of surgical excision of skin, excision of breast tissue and various forms of liposuction. The anatomic requirements of each individual patient determine which modalities and to what degree they may be necessary for achieving a desired result.

Some very important physical differences exist.  The contours in women are typically desired to be curvy and gently transitioning. Male contours are more abrupt, discontinuous and geometric.  A beneficial feature of male patients is that skin elasticity is greater and persists to a later age.  Unfortunately, male adipose tissues are more fibrous. This makes the task of extraction more difficult to accomplish.

All of these factors are important to understand in the assessment, expectation, establishment, and treatment of liposuction areas in men.

Dr. Anire Okpaku:

So, liposuction definitely isn’t just for women. I do a lot of men probably about 20 to 25 percent of my surgical patients are men, and they have fantastic results. Men tend to be pickier but they actually tend to have better results overall, because they really know what they want and they go after it. And they work on their diet and exercise very aggressively, generally speaking, afterwards.