A mother of 3 in her early 40’s who had a right breast saline implant deflation. She had had breast augmentation 10 years earlier in another state and noticed that her right breast deflated shortly after a recent mammogram. They were subpectoral and placed originally through an inframammary incision ( at the breast fold). She obtained her old records and had Mentor 300-325 cc implants filled to 325cc. She liked the fact that she could tell when the implant failed without an MRI, but was bothered by the ripples and “baggy filled with water” sensation when she touched her saline implants. She elected to have both implants replaced with the 335 cc Ideal Structured Saline implant. The posterior chamber was filled to 188cc, the anterior chamber to 95 cc and with the empty implant volume of 52 cc this gives her a total volume of 335 cc. They were replaced through the original inframammary incision. She is shown just before and again, 6 weeks after surgery. She likes the feel of the Ideal implants much better, which do not feel “like a baggy filled with water” and do not have the ripples on the sides.
Discussion: The Ideal structured saline implants are not the exact size of the mentor implants. The 300 cc mentor implant filled to 325 cc is 12.1 cm wide at the base and projects 4.3 cm. The Ideal Structured saline implant is 335-375 and filled to 335 has a base of 11.4 cm and a projection of 4.5 cm. The base measurements are not identical because the Ideal implant is curved at the base to sit on the curved chest wall and not flat on the base like the Mentor implant. This seemed to the the closest match in dimensions. She did not want to be significantly larger.
Her right nipple is lower than the left. It is not enough of a difference though to justify the scar of a mastopexy (breast lift) around the nipple. I typically wait until there is a least a 2.5 cm difference before a mastopexy is recommended. We tell women that breast are “sisters and not twins” and typically are not identical in appearance. No implants last forever and the typical statistics suggest that 8% of all breast implants have leaked by 10 years. This is true for the cohesive silicone implants, “gummy bear” implants and saline implants. The Ideal implants do not have 10 year numbers yet. But their 7 year numbers are actually better than the other implants at 7 years so we will have to wait and see if this holds true at 10 years as well.
Cosmetic & Plastic Surgery Specialist
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- Jonathan D. Hall, MD, FACSmembers of my own family."
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