Giving female genital cosmetic surgery a facelift

摘要

The "designer vagina" sounds like the name of a "Sex in the City" episode, and may evoke a variety of responses, from enthusiasm for anything that can make the vagina more modern and user-friendly, to mistrust for unproven treatments for conditions that have not been clearly defined. Regardless of one's response, the definition of the "designer vagina" is elusive and must be comprehensible before any discussion can ensue. In a committee opinion in 2007, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists [1], stated that terms such as "designer vaginoplasty" or "vaginal rejuvenation" are not standard medical nomenclature. As such, procedures using these non-specific definitions cannot be appropriately studied for safety and efficacy. Four years later, Mirzabeigi et al, proposed, in a letter to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery in 2011 [2], that terminology be standardized in an effort to avoid ambiguity and inconsistency. In this editorial, we refer to techniques employed to modify the physical appearance (shape, caliber or length) of the vagina and external genitalia for aesthetic purposes as "female genital cosmetic surgery" (FGCS) [3].