Dr. Gary J. Alter

Dr. Gary J. Alter is based in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles and has privately practiced cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery since 1993. Although Dr. Alter performs a range of cosmetic facial and body surgical procedures, he specializes primarily in genital reconstructive surgery, and is Board Certified not only as a Plastic Surgeon, but also as a Urologist.

Dual certification in both these specialties is extremely rare and Dr. Alter is currently one of only three physicians in the United States to possess formal training and certification in both fields. As a board certified Urologist since 1979, a board certified Plastic Surgeon since 1992 and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Plastic Surgery at UCLA medical school, he’s considered to be one of the United States’ leading specialists in genital surgery.

Probably because his career doesn’t revolve exclusively around cosmetic penis enlargement surgery, Dr. Alter’s website is extremely frank and informative about the subject. In fact, it’s one of the few sources of information written by a medical specialist with extensive experience in the field that we’ve found to be totally objective.

Dr. Alter openly states that surgical penis enlargement procedures have not yet been standardized and are still very much evolving. He further states that there is very little documented research available regarding typical gains achieved, and as such the debate over the long-term effectiveness of penis enlargement surgery continues. This is a similar opinion to that of the American Urological Association, who officially states that surgical lengthening and girth enhancement techniques have ‘not been shown to be safe or efficacious.’

Interestingly, Dr. Alter is the only specialist surgeon listed here who no longer performs penis girth enlargement surgery in any form. As far as fat transfer injections are concerned, he notes the frequent occurrence of high, often uneven reabsorbtion of the transplanted fat to be the procedure’s key drawback.

More unusually however, neither does he perform dermal fat graft augmentation, a procedure which is generally considered to give superior and more stable long term results. Although Dr. Alter does agree that dermal fat grafts often do produce permanent gains in penis girth, he also states that there are nevertheless potential complications involved and without long term patient assessment, results can still be unpredictable. In rare circumstances for example, grafts may shrink or only partially survive and in these instances penis curvature, asymmetry or even penile shortening can occur.

Likewise, Dr. Alter is airing on the side of caution as far as grafts made of Alloderm are concerned. Alloderm is produced from cadaver dermis i.e. donated human skin tissue, which has been processed to remove any chance of rejection by the recipient and to ensure it is free of potential disease. Alloderm grafts can be layered around the penis in a similar manner to dermal fat grafts, and the use of the material is slowly gaining favour amongst specialist penis enlargement surgeons.

The main advantage of Alloderm is that, unlike dermal fat grafts, tissue grafts are not taken from the patient. No incisions are made to harvest the grafts and therefore, donor site scarring is avoided and recovery from surgery is generally quicker and less painful. Although certain penis enlargement surgeons such as Dr. E. Douglas Whitehead and Dr. Rodney S. Barron claim to be achieving very good results with Alloderm, there are still some concerns about the long term stability of the material. Issues such as the likelihood of rejection (because Alloderm is a foreign material) and typical levels of reabsorbtion, as yet have not been fully researched and documented. It seems that until these questions have been fully addressed, Dr. Alter is not willing to use the substance.

Although Dr. Alter does not presently perform any girth enlargement procedures, he continues to offer surgical penis lengthening. However, he is careful not to exaggerate the gains that can be achieved and emphasizes the importance of regular penile stretching in the months following surgery. As with most independent research into surgical penis lengthening, Dr. Alter states that realistically, a well motivated patient should expect to eventually gain no more than an extra inch in penis length.

It’s worth mentioning that Dr. Alter has also operated on numerous patients who have suffered severe penile deformities as a result of previous poorly performed penis enlargement surgery. Having seen firsthand the complications that can arise and having corrected the mistakes of less skilled surgeons may be one reason he is less inclined to overly promote these procedures. Whatever his reasons, Dr. Alter is clearly very knowledgeable in the area of genital surgery, and for those seriously considering surgical penis enlargement, his brief but informative overview of the procedures involved makes important reading.

Visit Dr. Gary J. Alter ’s website.