BUENOS AIRES, Nov 30, 2009 (AFP) - A 38-year-old former Miss Argentina, Solange Magnano, died over the weekend from complications resulting from cosmetic surgery, friends of the victim said Monday 30 November.

Solange Magnano

"This woman who had everything is dead because she wanted to have a slightly firmer ass," said Roberto Piazza, a fashion designer and close friend of Magnano, who frequently appeared as a runway model in his fashion shows.

Magnano, Miss Argentina 1994, a married mother of eight-year-old twins, went under the knife Thursday 26 November at a plastic surgery center in the capital city, Buenos Aires, hoping to tone up her derriere.

She was rushed to the hospital Friday 27 November suffering from a pulmonary embolism, and died on Sunday 29 November, her friends said.

"She only underwent the procedure because she thought it was no big deal," said Guillermo Azar, another associate from the fashion world and a close friend of Magnano's.

Meanwhile, Juan Carlos Seiler, former president of an association here of plastic surgeons, suggested that the doctor who performed the procedure might not have been "a real professional from an approved" cosmetic surgery center.

There were around 50,000 plastic surgery procedures performed in Argentina in 2008, a 60 percent increase over 2003, with a growing number of foreigners seeking inexpensive cosmetic enhancements accounting for much of the increase.