What this site is for
This site exists to help you decide. It is written for someone with loose abdominal skin or separated abdominal muscles who is trying to work out whether an operation is the right answer, what it would cost in recovery time and risk, and when the honest answer is to wait. It is not a catalogue of techniques and it does not try to teach the medicine: how abdominoplasty is performed, how the abdominal wall is repaired, and how the tissue behaves over years are covered by the breast and body contouring service and by Dr. Mao’s own clinical site.
How it is written and reviewed
Each guide is drafted by the patient-education team from published specialty guidance and then medically reviewed by Tongchun Mao, MD, Deputy Director and Head of Aesthetic Surgery, who leads the breast and body contouring service at Chongqing West District Hospital. Every page carries the reviewer’s name and a review date, and content is scheduled for review at least once a year.
What it deliberately leaves out
There are no prices here and no packages, because a cost quoted before an assessment is a number that will change. There are no brand names of drugs or devices and no dosages. There are no before-and-after images, because an image selected to persuade is not evidence about your abdomen, and no testimonials, because an individual experience is not a prediction of yours.
What it cannot do
It cannot tell you what is right for your body. Whether the problem is skin, fat or muscle; whether a repair is needed; how much skin can be removed safely; and what your own clot and healing risks are — all of that requires an examination and a measurement that can only be done in person. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a treatment plan or a guarantee.
Corrections
If you find something on this site that is wrong, unclear or out of date, the hospital’s patient-education team would rather hear about it than not. Corrections are made through the contact page and the review date on the affected page is updated when a substantive change is made.