What is the Ideal Implant?

Silicone versus Saline Implant

The controversy regarding breast augmentations using silicone versus saline implants continues despite a 12-year moratorium. During this time we could not use silicone implants. Experts redid hundreds of studies to prove that silicone was safe when placed in the body as a breast implant. Today, the advantages of using a silicone implant are that it feels natural and it resists rippling. Rippling refers to the visual wrinkling of the lower breast pole skin. The wrinkling of the shell of saline implants (called scalloping) causes rippling. It is most noticeable in thinner patients.

In contrast, the main long term disadvantage of a silicone implant is that the silicone gel on the inside of the implant can microscopically ooze out of the shell. When silicone oozes out, it can cause the formation of a thickened capsule, termed capsular contracture. When capsular contracture becomes more advanced the overlying breast can become hardened and deformed. Fortunately, this process takes several decades to develop. Although the creation of thicker shelled silicone implants minimized the occurrence of capsular contracture, this complication does not occur with saline implants. The elimination of capsular contracture in saline implants is due to the avoidance of silicone gel. Thus, free silicone molecules inside the shell. Instead, saltwater, i.e. normal saline, fills saline implants.

Advantages of the Ideal Implant

I am often amazed at how nice the patient’s breasts look following saline implants even 30 years following augmentation! Unfortunately, traditional saline breast implants still are compromised by feeling firmer (much like a water balloon) and creating lower breast pole rippling as discussed above.

Today, we have the luxury of using a new saline implant, called the Ideal Implant, which provides patients a saline implant option that feels more natural, like silicone, and one which minimizes rippling. Specifically, the Ideal implant utilizes a proprietary multi-laminar shell which softens the feel of the implant and minimizes rippling. In summary, the Ideal Implant offers patients a saline implant alternative, one which provides the benefits of avoiding capsular contracture and rippling,  yet maintaining a softer feel when compared to the conventional saline implant.

For more information and to determine whether you are a good candidate for a breast augmentation procedure, please schedule a consultation.

SEE ALSO: Rapid Recovery Breast Augmentation