New NavMDs Report Finds Women 55+ Now Outpace Women in Their 20s for Breast Augmentation Procedures

The fastest-growing breast augmentation demographic isn't who you think. Hint: she remembers when silicone was banned.

SANTA MONICA, CA, UNITED STATES, April 2, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The team at NavMDs — the platform where real patients navigate and share their experiences with plastic surgeons and cosmetic procedures — has published a new infographic breaking down two decades of breast augmentation data in America.

The analysis draws from 13,512 records across 349 American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) annual reports spanning 2005 to 2024. What the data shows is a market that looks stable on the surface but has shifted substantially underneath — particularly in who is actually getting the procedure.

1. The boob job isn't declining — it's aging up.
Volume stable at ~300K/year. The patient shifted from 20-somethings to 40-and-50-somethings. The under-30 market has halved.

2. Silicone won the implant wars.
From 35% in 2007 to 88% by 2018. Saline went from market leader to relic in a decade.

3. The "explant" trend is real in the data.
Implant removals grew for 15 consecutive years (2009–2024), doubling from 20K to 41K, even during COVID.

4. Gen Z is sitting this one out.
Under-20 augmentation dropped 70% from peak and hasn't recovered. A structural generational shift, not a blip.

5. The $1B+ market is price-driven, not volume-driven.
Procedure counts are flat since 2005, but surgeon fees are up 43%. The 2019 fee spike was the biggest single-year jump in the

The age shift is the headline. In 2018, 90,395 women in their 20s received breast augmentation. By 2024, that number had fallen to 49,277 — a drop of 41,000 patients in a single age group. Over that same period, women 55 and older went from 7,749 procedures to 40,950, a 429% increase. More women over 55 are now getting breast augmentation than women in their 20s. That has not been true at any prior point in this dataset.

Teen procedures tell a similar story. From 2006 through 2018, augmentation for patients under 20 held in a consistent range of 7,800 to 10,500 procedures per year. By 2022, that number had fallen 71% from its 2007 peak and has shown no meaningful recovery since. The NavMDs infographic tracks this year by year.

The implant mix shifted just as decisively. When the FDA re-approved silicone gel implants in November 2006, saline still held 65% of the market. By 2018, silicone had reached 88% share. A modest pullback to 84% in 2019–2020 lines up with the period when breast implant illness entered mainstream conversation — something NavMDs users were actively discussing well before it reached broader media coverage.

On the economics side, the growth has come from price, not volume. Total procedure counts in 2024 are only 5% higher than in 2005. Average surgeon fees, however, have risen 43% — from $3,406 to $4,875. The largest single-year jump came in 2019, when the average fee rose 25%, pushing total market revenue to an all-time high of $1.37 billion.

Augmentation is also the only major breast procedure that has declined from its peak. Breast lifts are up 47% since 2007. Reconstruction is up 185%. Cosmetic reductions have nearly doubled. Implant removals have grown every year for 15 consecutive years — from 19,857 in 2009 to 41,271 in 2024 — including during COVID when most elective procedures dropped sharply.

Regionally, the Pacific has led for 20 straight years. California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii represent 16% of the U.S. population but account for 36–38% of all breast augmentations annually. Post-pandemic, the South Atlantic — driven largely by Florida — has grown its share from a steady 15–17% to 20–21%, the most notable regional change in the data.

The full infographic, with charts covering all of the above, is available now at navmds.com/resources/breast-augmentation-infographic.
NavMDs published this because patients researching procedures deserve access to the same data the industry works from. Understanding where the market is, who is in it, and how it has changed over time is useful context for anyone making these decisions.

View the full infographic: https://www.navmds.com/resources/breast-augmentation-infographic

Data source: American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) annual statistics reports, 2005–2024. Analysis and visualization by NavMDs.
About NavMDs: NavMDs is the platform where real people navigate and share their experiences with plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgery — helping patients make informed decisions with the support of a community that's been there.

Andrea Smith
NavMDs
+1 424-322-0709
email us here

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