The world is coming to Brazil to have its wrinkles stretched and its tummy tucked. In 2006, 50,000 foreigners traveled to Brazil for health treatments, a 65 percent jump over 2004, according to the Ministry of Tourism. The ministry estimates that half of them came for Plastic Surgery in clinics in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and northeastern beach resorts such as Fortaleza.

That makes Brazil the most-popular spot for plastic surgery outside the United States.
Prospective patients living in countries where health care is expensive can jet to Brazil and cut the price of procedures in half, says Osvaldo Saldanha, president of Brazil's Plastic Surgery Society. And for a relatively low price, patients are often treated like royalty in a setting far from the prying eyes of friends and colleagues. ``A lot of these clinics are very luxurious and offer foreigners the privacy they want,'' says William Weissman, consular chief at the U.S. consulate in Rio.
Prospective cosmetic surgery patients are increasingly shopping for plastic surgery on the Internet, where agencies offer beachfront hotel stays as part of the package. Many patients arrive in Brazil, ready to go under the knife.
Plastic surgery is thriving in the U.S. and Brazil. More than 2 million procedures were done in the U.S. in 2005, up from 1.8 million in 2003, according to ASAPS. In Brazil, there were 865,000 operations, up from 621,000 in 2003, according to the Brazil Plastic Surgery Society.
The number of procedures has been growing 20 percent a year. Nearly 4,100 certified plastic surgeons operate in Brazil compared with 5,000 in the U.S., giving Brazil one plastic surgeon per 43,900 people compared with one per 59,000 in the U.S.

Celebrity endorsements of cosmetic surgery have helped the industry grow. Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate developer, responding to e-mailed questions, writes that surgery improves the chances of success in the business world.
``People will remember you more readily if you are a beautiful woman or a handsome man,'' he writes. ``It's just human nature.'' His ex-wife Ivana says she's a friend of Ivo Pitanguy. ``Ivo has established himself as one of the truly pre-eminent doctors in the world,'' she says. ``He has helped both rich and poor alike look to their futures with beautiful faces.''
Neither Donald nor Ivana Trump will confirm they've had plastic surgery, and the doctor won't reveal the names of any of his patients.
Cosmetic surgery , a privilege of the rich until the early 1980s, has become increasingly available to just about anyone with a few thousand dollars to spend. In Brazil, the middle classes have been won over by accessible prices and offers of payment on the installment plan.

Foreigners are attracted by Brazil's low prices and its distance from wherever home is, says Vincent Chastel, a French national who owns Estetica Brasil, a Fortaleza-based plastic surgery tour agency. ``Europeans and Americans don't want their friends and coworkers to know they've had a lift or a lipo,'' Chastel says. ``They can have a little work done during vacation and tell everyone they just had a really relaxing time and ate healthy food in Brazil.''