In a quest for a larger and shapelier bottom, women across the US are risking their lives for black market procedures, which often involves home-improvement materials such as silicone injected by people with no medical training.
Deaths from black market buttocks injections have been reported in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York and Nevada, the New York Daily News reported.
An interior decorator in Mississippi faces trial in the deaths of two women who were injected at her house.
Online forums used to set up the illegal procedures have attracted thousands of responses.
According to Dr. John Martin, a plastic surgeon in Coral Gables, Fla., illicit cosmetic procedures have become common. Sometimes multiple people are injected in hotel rooms in "pumping parties."
Some people have silicone injected in their faces, where it can cause protruding, rock-hard nodules, but it's easier to treat than the large amounts injected into the buttocks.
Martin said that it can also cause infections and blood clots. If the needles hit a blood vessel, the silicone can enter the blood stream and work its way to the lungs.