Truth in Cosmetic Surgery

Huge Breast Implant Removal?

Reader Question:

Just wondering what your thoughts were on girls such as this. I understand these sort of implants were only available for a short time only….can’t imagine why they were ever invented actually! Are these implants able to be removed? What are the long term complications?

Huge Breast Implant Patient

As we have mentioned before, silicone gel doesn’t do a body good. When this stuff is placed into your body, your tissues are best shielded from the bare silicone gel. The degree to which there may be a problem can be minimized, but the larger breast implants have more involved effects upon the patient’s body than smaller ones.

When the implants get really large, those changes affect not only the skin and soft tissue, but also the chest wall (ribs, and bones.) Really large implants actually wear into and bend bones and cartilage. These kinds of problems are most commonly seen in reconstructive breast surgery (re-creation of the breast after breast cancer treatment,) but would certainly affect patients with huge breast implants over time. The implants this woman has are in the “well over a 1000 cc each.” You can’t get them in the United States and I wouldn’t want to place them if you could. This makes my malpractice carrier happy.

Very few of these “super large” implant patients come to having their implants removed (without replacement) as the appearance afterward would be pretty unusual. Such a patient would likely have to have several operations to take in the stretched skin and would likely be left with noticeable contour defects visible under that stretched skin, that is, if the implants were not to be replaced.

I think it is safe to say that most people would categorize implants in this size as “ridiculous breast implants.”

Best Regards,

John Di Saia MD