Breast Implantation / Augmentation Before & After Photos

Approximately 1 month post operation. The middle breasts are beautifully round in the post-operative photo despite the pre-operative breasts being small and placed out more towards the outside of the chest.

SILICONE BREAST IMPLANTS

About 10 years ago, the FDA banned silicone breast implants. As it is fairly well known by now, this was a political move based on Dr. David Kessler’s ambitions. This person, head of the F.D.A. at the time, went after the silicone breast implant industry. The vote at which silicone implants were banned had only one person voting to ban the silicone: Kessler. He forced the issue and a whole series of untoward events occurred. Studies were performed by the implant companies. Dow-Corning, a silicone manufacturer with a 4-billion dollar market worth, went bankrupt because of lawsuits. Eventually, all of the testing came back with negative results. No evidence ever developed that silicone had harmful effects on human beings. It is inert biologically. Although there seem to be a few people who got better when their silicone implants were removed, this was blamed on low-grade infections. No evidence of collagen-vascular disease from silicone implants was ever conclusively developed. Lots of litigation occurred. Individual patients were generally part of class-action lawsuits, in which the people supposedly damaged by the implant problem received very little money.

In any case, no “foreign” material placed inside the body is entirely benign. Silicone implants might pose more medical problems than saline, or salt water-filled, implants. Silicone implants can rupture just like saline. This can occasionally produce a difficult clean-up problem for a surgeon removing an implant. But silicone has never been documented to cause allergies in human beings.

We are now allowed to use silicone implants for anyone since late 2006. They are aesthetically more pleasing than saline implants: they feel better and ripple less. Don’t be swayed by all these events; make rational decisions with your physician. We do have to place them through an incision, near the breast, about 1-1/2 inch to 2 inches long (we can often place saline implants through the belly button, virtually avoiding visible scars). And it is true that the capsular contraction rate, or chance of significant scarring around the implant, is somewhat higher with silicone implants than saline implants.

If you are a patient who needs silicone breast implant removal because your silicone breasts implant may have leaked, be sure that your physician considers a CT scan or other noninvasive study to examine the breast prior to the surgery to see what is going on. Also, a special jet power washout device made by Stryker is very helpful to remove as much of this silicone as possible. Often many quarts of sterile salt-water solution are used to wash out the pocket as much as possible.

This patient is from the Los Angeles area and had her silicone implants placed in our Pasadena surgical facility.

Surgeon: Dr. Yoho
Patient Gender: Female