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Arch Facial Plast Surg. 2002;4:200.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

I read the article by Alsaraff et al¹ with great interest and am pleased that the authors attempted to build on my previous work examining the economics of aesthetic surgery. I am concerned, however, by their assumptions, methods, analysis, and conclusions.

The authors argue that since aesthetic surgery is a luxury good, increased prices inexorably lead to increased demand and revenues. Before the authors and their readers embark on a campaign of radical price increases and plan early retirement, I would suggest a careful review of the processes the authors used to arrive at this conclusion.

Alsaraff et al attempt to create a demand curve for aesthetic surgery using survey data. They show that those who do more procedures charge higher fees. They then present a regression analysis and create a "linear curve fit" graph and label it an upward sloping demand curve, arguing that increased fees led to higher . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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