BATTLE OF THE BOOB SURGEONS

April 30, 2006 -- WAR has broken out between Howard Stern's favorite cosmetic surgeon, Philadelphia-based Dr. Sal Calabro, and Upper East Side plastic surgeon Dr. Andrew Klapper(http://www.outer-beauty.com), who claims that Calabro doesn't deserve the glory of being Stern's prized mammary maestro.
Klapper kicked off the silicone smackdown when he fired off e-mails questioning Calabro's credibility to former Stern show regular Chaunce Hayden, who was nice enough to forward the missives to Page Six. When we contacted Calabro - best known for performing breast augmentation on women who win contests on Stern's show - and told him about Klapper's trash-talking, Calabro promptly issued a challenge:
"If he wants to take me on, I will meet him in Howard Stern's studios and tell him to bring his surgery records for the past five years," a steamed Calabro told us. "I'm sure I do much better work than he does. Tell him to bring his last 500 facelift pictures and I will bring mine and we'll compare them. He'll [bleep] his pants."
But Klapper shot back, "I'm not interested. I'll be judged by my peers. I'm a serious plastic surgeon. I just don't think that someone who's an ophthalmologist is being recognized on the radio as a breast expert. That's just my opinion." (Calabro counters that he did his residency in dermatology and dermatologic surgery, and that he's been a cosmetic surgeon for many years.)
Calabro - whose racy Web site features him frolicking with bikini-clad women and a quote from Playboy describing him as "the most recognized cosmetic surgeon in the country" - said Klapper is jealous of his success. "All I do is cosmetic surgery," Calabro crowed. "I get paid in advance. He has to bill people. If he treats someone's bed sore, he has to bill the insurance company and wait six months to get paid."
Klapper - who admits he was once in talks with Hayden to appear on Stern's show for a contest called "Bobbing For Boobs," in which women would bob for implants in a tank of water - says he isn't interested in a "p--ing match" with Calabro.
"I do a lot of cosmetic surgery," he said. "I don't want to talk about his work. The only thing I was commenting on was that he's not a plastic surgeon, which he does not deny."
We'll give the final word to Calabro, who called Klapper "a pimple on the ass of cosmetic surgery."