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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 breast
implant 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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