Kuala Lumpur  - Top plastic surgeons on Thursday urged those keen to engage their services to go only to qualified specialists as the number of botched surgeries rises with the industry's boom in Asia.

More than 60 plastic surgeons from around the world, most specializing in breast augmentation, kicked off a three-day meeting of the first Asian Breast Aesthetic Symposium in Kuala Lumpur.

A panel of nine plastic surgeons is to lead the conference, which is to include sessions introducing the latest technologies in breast augmentation.

"I can assure you that the aesthetic plastic surgery industry is rapidly growing," said Charles Randquist, chairman of the symposium and a leading surgeon from Sweden.

"If one were to look at the numbers, I would say this is one of the fastest growing industries in Asia," he said.

In China, the demand for breast augmentation was quickly rising with one local hospital recording a 30-per-cent surge this year alone, Chinese plastic surgeon Luan Jie said.

"The cost of breast augmentation is high, perhaps amounting to a year's salary for a typical worker," he said, "but why so many women do it is because the surgery brings them confidence."

"Plastic surgery is much more in demand now, but they're also much safer," US-trained surgeon Arthur Swift said

However, Randquist warned that there has been a rise in botched surgeries.

He blamed the negative perception of breast enhancement on the work of untrained doctors, saying that because government regulations were lacking in certain parts of Asia, patients needed to practise discretion.

"If you're going to get plastic surgery, get it by a board-certified practitioner," he said at a media conference ahead of the symposium.

"For every successful operation, we have to deal with a lot of problems of bad procedures," Malaysian surgeon Lee Kim Siea said.

Asia's medical tourism industry was expected to be worth billions of dollars by 2012 with many potential patients attracted to the lower prices and rising professionalism of the industry in the region.

However, some governments in Asia are experiencing difficulty in monitoring plastic surgeries, which are also offered by shady beauty salons and private clinics.(dpa)