March 3, 2002 -- Lured by the look of fat, luscious lips of Hollywood stars, a growing number of baby boomers are spending thousands on cosmetic lip injections, only to develop lumpy mouths.

Soaring use of lip plumpers is part of a larger cosmetic treatment craze, as millions of North Americans turn to enhancements ranging from facelifts to Botox injections in a bid to burnish their looks. But there are risks.

Several Canadian physicians say they're finding long-lasting bumps, or nodules, in people using a filler called Artecoll in their lips. Artecoll is a toothpaste-thick blend of tiny Plexiglas beads, bovine collagen and the painkiller lidocaine. And it's the only cosmetic injectable marketed in Canada as a permanent implant. Distributed by Montreal-based Canderm Pharma, a recent promotional CD ROM put out by the company says that model/actress Liz Hurley owes her full pouty lips to Artecoll -- perhaps another thing she now has to worry about on top of the paternity woes of her unborn child.

"There's no way to remove this stuff except by cutting it out," says Kitchener plastic surgeon Dr. Claudio De Lorenzi, an early Artecoll booster who has stopped using it in lips because of lumping. "This is not acceptable for my patients."

Since its approval for sale in Canada in 1998, more than 5,500 syringes of Artecoll have been sold in this country. It's not known exactly how many Canadians have been treated, since patients generally need more than one shot, but well over 1,000 people have been injected.

Artecoll is fiercely defended by Robin Lalonde of Canderm Pharma in Montreal. She charges that a corporate rival in the multi-million dollar injectables trade is out to create "negative noise" about the product. Lalonde declines to name the rival but industry watchers say there's a battle under way between Canderm and a biotech firm called Q-MED, selling non-permanent fillers.

Lalonde dismisses De Lorenzi's concerns about lumping and charges that the former Artecoll supporter had "crossed the field and gone over to the other side" because he is running a clinical trial funded by Canderm's rival.

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