Do you have the right surgeon? - How many has this person done? What have the results been? Can you see any photos of their work not someone else’s?)
Do you have the right breast implant? – What are the published statistics of capsular contraction with this implant? What are the published statistics of implant rotation with this implant?
The breast implant with the lowest rate of recorded problems is the Microthane coated anatomical implant from Polytech GMBH in Germany. Read on for more information about it and the other offerings available today.
All surgery comes with a potential for post operative complications. Breast implant surgery is no exception. Any surgery where an implant (foreign object that is to be left inside the body) comes with a higher risk than most. Implant failure and problems with procedure are the most common in all types of surgery. Implant failure is almost unheard of now in breast surgery. Modern breast implants are almost always made from high tech silicone and are very safe providing you aren’t allergic to silicone (very rare).
Breast Implants still come with a high failure rate for other reasons.
There are in fact 3 main surface coatings to the high tech silicone and two main shapes. Round implants are the only implants that have FDA approval in the USA. The cost of getting breast implants through the FDA has restricted the amount and type of implant available in America because of this. No anatomical (breast shaped) implants have yet been through this registration. Thankfully in Europe they do not need FDA approval to be used, which is why anatomical implants are available here. If a round implant rotates in the pocket created by the surgeon, it is almost never noticed as a perfectly round implant simply rotates on its axis. However these implants rarely look like real breasts. Some anatomical implants can rotate if the surgical pocket created by the surgeon does not hold them in place, or if the patient exerts themselves in an unusual way, especially in the first few weeks.
Capsular Contraction
Capsular contraction occurs when scar tissue forms over an implant then as all scars do, it shrinks, causing unsightly and sometimes painful ridges over the implant. The only thing that can be done is to remove the implant and put a new one in. The problem here is that the patient will almost certainly have a higher risk of re forming the scar tissue and therefore a recurrence of the Capsular Contraction. Companies who manufacture breast implants are aware of these issues and the fact that most people would prefer a normal looking breast, so they developed a textured coating to implants that helps the implant settle into position and stay there. This also significantly reduced the number of rotations and the rate of Capsular Contraction, but the rate is still high. In most research papers it remains at over 7 % within 5 years. A company called Polytech in Germany then produced the first breast implants with an even higher tech coating called Microthane, this has reduced both the rotation and the Capsular Contraction rate to around 0.2%, significantly lower than any other available today. Ask your surgeon for this type of implant, they are now available in the UK.
Who decides for low cost implants may have to pay dearly in the end Dieburg, 6 January 2011. BfArM, the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, had already posted an alert in May 2011 regarding the products of the French company PIP (Poly Implant Prothèse)1. For years, PIP used non-medical grade silicone for [...]
