Medical experts say cosmetic surgery should be performed only on relatively healthy people.
But Donda West, the 58-year-old mother of rapper Kanye West, had a number of serious health problems, including high blood pressure, high blood sugar and cardiac artery blockage, according to an autopsy report released this week. Still, a plastic surgeon approved her for extensive cosmetic surgery last year.
She died Nov. 10, a day after undergoing the 5 ½-hour operation, and the circumstances of West's death underscore a point that has become a worry of experts on plastic surgery.
As the number of cosmetic surgeries increases rapidly, experts said, they are struggling to educate patients and doctors that the operations carry the same significant risks as any other kind of surgery and should require thorough pre-operative screening.
"I think American consumers have been treating plastic surgery like a commodity," said Dr. Rod Rohrich, chairman of plastic surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "It's not like going to find a pair of shoes. You can take the shoes back. You can't bring your life back."
Rohrich recalled one patient who was insistent about getting a face-lift even though she also needed a heart transplant.
"Bottom line, cosmetic surgery is only for patients that are healthy," he said. "If they're not healthy, it's really not usually a good thing to do."
But more prospective patients are increasingly demanding such cosmetic procedures even if they are not fit for them, he said.
