Ant Waist Surgery: Aesthetic Removal of Floating Ribs to Decrease the Waist-hip Ratio

Decreasing waist circumference has become an essential feature in modern body contouring surgery owing to the attractiveness of hourglass body shapes. Traditionally, this can be achieved through lipomodeling and abdominal musculature strengthening techniques. An adjunctive procedure for ideal shaping of the waistline is resection of the 11th and 12th ribs, referred to as floating ribs. This study aimed to report and analyze clinical outcomes and self-reported patient satisfaction after “ant waist” surgery (floating rib removal) for aesthetic reasons. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of five patients who had undergone bilateral 11th and 12th rib resections at a single institute in Taiwan in an outpatient setting. The mean lengths of the resected left and right 11th ribs were 9.1 and 9.5 cm, respectively. The mean lengths of the resected left and right 12th ribs were 6.3 and 6.4 cm, respectively. The mean waist-to-hip ratio decreased from 0.78 preoperatively to 0.72 postoperatively, with a mean decrease of 7.7%. No adverse events were reported. Generally, all patients reported being satisfied with the operation. Floating rib resection proved useful and effective in decreasing the waist-to-hip ratio using a safe, simple, and reproducible technique without significant complications. Although preliminarily, the authors’ comprehensive demonstration of this ant waist surgery supports further studies focusing on waistline contouring.