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Remove & Replace Breast Implants
The best candidates for breast implant removal and replacement are women who are looking for improvement, not perfection, in the look and feel of their original implants. If you're physically healthy and realistic in your expectations, you may be a good candidate. Breast implant removal and replacement can enhance your appearance and your self-confidence, but it won't necessarily change your looks to match your ideal, or cause other people to treat you differently. Before you decide to have surgery, think carefully about your expectations and discuss them with your surgeon. If you have liquid silicone implants you should consider replacement. If your liquid silicone implants are more than 15 years old you should definitely look at replacing them. The lifespan of a liquid silicone implant is approximately 20 years and therefore gradual wear of the silicone shell would be evident by this time, leading to the possibility of rupture. A ruptured implant will cause the formation of siliconomas; hard lumps of scar tissue surrounding the leaked silicone gel. See "Liquid Silicone Gel Implants" A breast implant is a silicone shell traditionally filled with either liquid silicone gel or a salt-water solution known as saline. The latest and best implants use a soft but solid silicon rubber called cohesive gel. Breast implants were initially round in shape, and these implants are still available. However, new technology has given us tear drop shaped implants which allow for a more natural looking breast.. All modern implants are anatomically shaped or breast - shaped (like a teardrop). Breast implants are also available with smooth or textured surfaces. Originally all implants were smooth, but experience has shown us that the textured shell implants dramatically reduce the incidence of capsular contracture (hardening and distortion of the implant). Smooth implants are less expensive and have a thinner wall, but suffer a 40 - 60% risk of capsular contracture. The risk for the textured implants is 1.7%. Cohesive gel implants are only available with a textured surface and these are the implants of choice for our surgeons. For those patients who have had capsular contracture in the past, we now have a new polyurethane implant by Silimed. This implant has been specifically designed to disallow any movement inside the pocket of tissue and therefore reduce the incidence of a capsule forming to almost nil. Breast implant removal and replacement is relatively straightforward. But as with any operation, there are risks associated and specific complications associated with this procedure. The most common problem, capsular contracture, is still possible after removal and replacement, however is much less likely with textured shell implants. The new polyurethane implants will reduce this possible side effect even further. |
There are many reasons for wanting to remove and/or replace your breast implants: original implants are leaking, capsular contracture has caused breast deformity or hardening of the breast, saline or liquid silicone implants needing replacement due to age of implants and possibility of rupture, patient desires larger or smaller size implants, natural breast size has increased with age more than desired.
