The Ideal Implant, plastic surgery’s first and only structured saline breast implant, debuted in 2006, promising to resist folding, wrinkling, sloshing, and collapsing when upright—common drawbacks of traditional saline implants.
On May 30, 2023, Ideal Implant Incorporated announced that it had ceased operations and was liquidating, citing an inability “to generate sufficient income from sales or to secure the capital investment necessary to maintain financial viability of the company.”
The company’s sudden closure left patients without a valid warranty on their implants. Ideal’s previous protection plan provided a free replacement if the implant ever deflated and a free replacement in cases of capsular contracture arising within 10 years of surgery.
Like other saline implants, the Ideal was filled with saltwater and housed in an outer shell made of silicone. What set it apart, however, was its internal structure: a series of inner shells (a.k.a. baffle shells), nested within one another, encasing two separate chambers, or lumens.
This patented structure—once considered a major advancement in breast implant technology—claimed to not only reduce folding and wrinkling but to lend the device a more natural look and feel, while controlling the movement of saline to mitigate uncomfortable sloshing (what docs refer to as the “water-hammer effect”).Â
As with other saline implants, if an Ideal Implant ruptured, its saltwater filler would be harmlessly absorbed by the body and some deflation would be immediately visible. But typically only one chamber would spring a leak, so the breast wouldn’t flatten entirely.Â
Oftentimes, when silicone gel implants rip or break, they maintain their shape, creating “silent ruptures” that are undetectable to the naked eye; that’s why the FDA mandates routine ultrasound or MRI scans of silicone implants. The Ideal Implant aimed to skirt both of these issues, providing more peace of mind to breast augmentation patients.
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The price one paid depended on:
There were subtle differences in how the Ideal Implant was filled and how it was placed.
“The Ideal Implant require[d] filling two chambers instead of a more traditional single-lumen saline implant,” says Dr. John Burns, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Dallas. “There [was] also a slightly different method of accounting for the volume, but the process [was] very simple to learn, and the actual breast augmentation [was] done just like a normal procedure.”
Ideal Implants were inserted through an incision in the fold below the breast. This incision was about 4 centimeters—slightly longer than a traditional saline implant, but smaller than the incision required to place a silicone gel implant.
Before the (empty) implant was inserted, the surgeon folded it, accordion-style, to remove any air from inside and allow it to easily pass through the small incision.Â
Once the surgeon had placed the Ideal Implant in a pocket they’d created within the breast tissue, they filled both lumens with saline.Â
The Ideal Implant could be placed either under or over the muscle, though saline implants typically go under the muscle for added coverage.
All breast implants come with potential risks and complications that include:
Mammograms may be more difficult with breast implants in place. Be sure to notify the technologist that you have breast implants prior to the procedure.
See our complete guide to breast implant safety
Ideal’s smooth, structured breast implants were not associated with BIA-ALCL, a rare cancer that’s a risk specific to textured breast implants. They also had a lower-than-average risk of capsular contract and rupture/deflation. Additionally, the design was shown to minimize the rippling commonly seen with other saline devices.
In 2020, not long after changing device manufacturing plants, the makers of the Ideal Implant noticed an uptick in reported ruptures and voluntarily took their implants off the market for a short time to investigate.Â
According to Newport Beach, California plastic surgeon Dr. Larry S. Nichter, “They found that the valve assembly varied by a fraction of a millimeter, which was the cause. This was corrected, and due to increased demand, they [were put] back on the market [in] November 2020.”
Updated June 6, 2023