Children as young as six are suffering cauliflower ears, multiple lesions and other permanent deformities as the fashion for 'high ear-piercings' gains popularity, according to new findings.

The damage is caused when the ear cartilage is shattered by piercing equipment designed for soft-tissue parts, such as ear lobes, eyebrows and tongues.

'I have seen children whose ear cartilage has been destroyed by inappropriate piercing equipment and who are left with "dog ears", where the top of their ear flops right over,' said Dr Junaid Hanif, of Heath Hospital in Cardiff, who carried out the study. Hanif found that most ear piercings are carried out by untrained practitioners, such as jewellers, hairdressers or tattooists.

'I'm seeing an increasing number of cases and, as the fashion becomes more popular, girls as young as 13 who are going to be badly scarred for life,' said Hanif, who has operated on three serious cases in the last month alone.

'When these piercing guns shatter the cartilage, as they almost always do, irrevocable and permanent damage is caused.'

More than 95 per cent of GPs in Greater Manchester have treated complications caused by body piercing in the past year, according to Hanif's study, and incidences in England and Wales of damage to ear cartilage caused by piercings have doubled in the last decade, with more than 2,000 cases reported last year.

'Children as young as six are having piercings in their navels, ears and noses,' said Dr Khalil Ghufoor, of the Royal National Nose, Throat and Ear Hospital in London. 'The infection is horribly painful and the scarring can be traumatic, but no statutory regulations exist on body piercing, and this is why the Government must act.'

The Royal College of Nursing is so alarmed by the rise that it has backed the calls for statutory legislation; at present each local authority has the power to decide whether piercings are carried out by trained practitioners or not.

'Ear deformities after upper ear piercings can be so psychologically distressing, especially for the younger sufferers, as to require a demanding reconstruction,' said Dr Silvia Cicchetti, an expert in plastic and reconstructive auricular surgery at the Mount Vernon Hospital, London. 'Even so, serious deformities are hard to avoid, and even if early intervention takes place damage may cause significant pain and discomfort.'

The potential complications of damage to the ear cartilage are serious, said Hanif, with at least one recent case of endotoxic shock being recorded.

The Vocational Training Charitable Trust has produced an industry code of practice for hygiene in salons and clinics, and the Local Government Act 1982 covers bylaws for the business of ear piercing - but registration still remains a personal decision for each local authority.

'We have argued that local authorities should make it a requirement for those performing high ear piercing to warn their customers of the potential of permanent deformity that they could suffer as a result of substandard piercings,' said Stephen Kent, a consultant at the Warrington Hospital NHS Trust, who has also seen a number of cases.