In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in St. Louis, the plaintiff is identified only as Jane Doe, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

"The woman was absolutely mortified when she saw her full frontal nude pictures in there," her lawyer, Richard Witzel, said Tuesday. "Picture your mother's reaction. The woman's in her 60s."

The suit seeks at least $75,000 from Body Aesthetics Plastic Surgery and Skin Care Center Inc. and Drs. V. Leroy Young, Robert Centeno and C.B. Boswell for breach of privacy, wrongful commercial appropriation and other claims. The photos were published to accompany an article, mainly about Young, in the Riverfront Times, an alternative St. Louis newspaper, in its print editions and online.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiff said she was told the photos were only for the doctors' internal use. They showed her from the neck down.

The woman, who had lost a lot of weight, had surgery to remove loose folds of skin.