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Technique:
After carefully assessing each patient, Dr Lovric, based in Cape Town
South Africa, will make a small incision under the breast. A pocket is
created and the chosen implant is then placed securely in this pocket.
The incision is then closed.
Contact Dr
Lovric here
This procedure may
take one to two hours and can be done under conscious sedation instead
of a general anaesthetic. This means rapid recovery and getting back to
work faster.
Are you a
candidate?
A breast implant
is a prosthesis used to enlarge the size of a woman's breasts (known as
breast augmentation, breast enlargement, mammoplast, enlargement,
augmentation mammoplasty or the common slang term boob job) for cosmetic
reasons; to reconstruct the breast (e.g. after a mastectomy; or to
correct genetic deformities), or as an aspect of male-to-female sex
reassignment surgery. According to the American Society of Plastic
Surgeons, breast augmentation is the most commonly performed cosmetic
surgical procedure in the United States. In 2006, 329,000 breast
augmentation procedures were performed in the U.S.
There are two primary types of breast implants: saline-filled and
silicone-gel-filled implants. Saline implants have a silicone elastomer
shell filled with sterile saline liquid. Silicone gel implants have a
silicone shell filled with a viscous silicone gel. There have been
several alternative types of breast implants developed, such as
polypropylene string or soy oil, but these are uncommon and not
recommended.
Saline implants
Silicone gel-filled breast implantsSaline-filled breast implants were
first manufactured in France in 1964, introduced by Arion with the goal
of being surgically placed via smaller incisions. Current saline devices
are manufactured with thicker, room temperature vulcanized (RTV) shells.
These shells are made of silicone elastomer and the implants are filled
with salt water after the implant is placed in the body. Since the
implants are empty when they are surgically inserted, the scar is
smaller than is necessary for silicone gel breast implants (which are
filled with silicone before the surgery is performed). A single
manufacturer (Poly Implant Prosthesis, France) produced a model of
pre-filled saline implants which has been reported to have high failure
rates in vivo.
Saline-filled
implants were most common implant used in the United States during the
1990's due to restrictions that existed on silicone implants, but were
rarely used in other countries. Good to excellent results may be
obtained, but as compared to silicone gel implants, saline implants are
more likely to cause cosmetic problems such as rippling, wrinkling, and
to be noticeable to the eye or the touch. Particularly for women with
very little breast tissue, or for post-mastectomy breast reconstruction,
silicone gel implants are considered as superior. In patients with more
breast tissue in whom submuscular implant placement is used, saline
implants can look very similar to silicone gel.
Regardless of the
type of implant, it is likely that women with implants will need to have
one or more additional surgeries (re-operations) over the course of
their lives. Most common indications for re-operations have included
major or minor complications, capsular contracture treatment, and
replacement of ruptured/deflated implants. Re-operation rates are
predictably more frequent in breast reconstruction cases due to the
dramatic changes in the soft-tissue envelope and anatomical breast
borders after mastetcomy, particularly when patients have received
adjuvant XRT.[40] Breast cancer patients also frequently undergo staged
procedures for reconstruction of the nipple-areola complex (NAC) and
symmetry procedures on the opposite breast.
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