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  • Saline vs. Silicone Breast Implants: The Biggest Stand-Off in Plastic Surgery
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The implant is a very safe medical device, and as any medical device, it's not permanent. There is a very small risk for implant rupture, capsular contracture and rippling.

As you know, implants are very widely used. There is a high satisfaction rate. But we do want to inform our patients about those three risks: rupture, capsular contracture and rippling.

You can really avoid implant rupture. It's usually rare and [inaudible 00:00:37] of the implants. The implants nowadays are very well made. All the implant companies do have lifetime warranty against a rupture. What that means is that if you ever get ruptured in your lifetime, the implant companies will give you the cost of the implants to get it redone.

In terms of the rippling, it has to do with how much of the breast coverage and muscle coverage you have on top of the implant. So the patients who have larger amounts of depressed tissue to begin with, they aren't going to experience as much of a rippling.

In terms of the capsule contracture, again, there's really nothing that we as the surgeons or you as the patient can do about it. But we do that [inaudible 00:01:19] to avoid infection or bleeding.

Some studies have shown that going under the muscle or using the textured implant do help with capsule contracture rate.

Two types of implants. As you know, there's a saline implant and there's a silicon implant. I do think there is really a preference in terms of you, what you feel most comfortable going into your body. Feel the difference between the saline and silicon. What do you feel more comfortable?

Saline tends to be a little bit firmer. Silicon tends to be softer, more natural feel. A couple of my patients, they do like more of the firmer feel. They tend to be younger patients. I see that in my practice in 90% of the time patients do prefer silicon. I think that they are both safe in terms of the capsule contracture rate and the rupture rate. It is about the same.

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Saline vs. Silicone Breast Implants: The Biggest Stand-Off in Plastic Surgery

Dr. Sugene Kim discusses the pros and cons of both saline and silicone breast implants, giving us some statistics on rupture and capsular contracture rates.