BREAST REVISION RUPTURED IMPLANTS – BEVERLY HILLS
Posted On: August 02, 2024 Author: The Office of Dr. Stuart Linder Posted In: Breast Revision
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Dr. Linder is a world-renowned Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon with over 27 years of experience treating patients with ruptured implants and revision breast surgery in the heart of Beverly Hills. He has operated on thousands of women for breast reconstruction and revision for a multitude of problems associated with breast implants. These problems include ruptured implants, both silicone and saline, capsular contracture, scar tissue formation, malposition, volume discrepancy, asymmetry, bottoming out and symmastia.
With respect to ruptured implants, Dr. Linder sees patients weekly in the operating room, repairs patients with both ruptured silicone and saline implants. The signs and symptoms can be quite different between saline and silicone. Remember that all implants, saline and/or silicone, are not lifetime devices. Whether Allergan or Mentor, these implants will normally last between 10 and 15 years; however, they can rupture prior to that or latera after time. It is important that patients speak to a plastic surgeon annually and have annual breast exams after the age of 35 as well as mammograms after the age of 40.
To detect saline implants, often which is noted in clinical diagnostic fashion, patients may simply present with a loss of volume of one breast or the implant may be leaking through the valve or can be leaking in one of the crease cracks along the shell of the implant. This can occur with either smooth or textured implants.
The implants will wear and tear over years and the patient again may wake up with a complete loss of volume of one size leading to severe asymmetry and the need to see a plastic surgeon for breast reconstructive surgery. Saline implants once again can lead to a virtual dogear leakage or can leak through crease cracks which are both failures that may occur due to multiple bending along the implant edge over time. When the implants are ruptured, normally Dr. Linder will send them for investigative purposes and warranty back to Allergan and/or Mentor Pharmaceuticals. Again, saline implants that are usually determined on rupture both clinically just on visualization as well as palpation or there is complete loss of volume of the breast implant. Implants can leak slowly through the valve, or they can rupture quickly and lose complete volume in just a short period of time, less than a week.
Silicone gel implants on the other hand are difficult to detect and these are referred to as silent rupture. Moreover, silicone implants including Allergan and Mentor implants in their shells, especially the Allergan style 10, 15, 20 and 35 is where liquified silicone with a thinner shell led to significant rupture rate. The best test is the MRI. The MRI should be performed three years after the initial surgery and every two years after, in order to determine if there’s a ruptured silicone implant, often seen as a Linguine sign on MRI. It is more difficult to detect rupture clinically on silicone than it is with saline. Patients may also present with pain, scar tissue, hardness, redness, or swelling. Patients with textured silicone Allergan implants should be especially concerned about risk factors for Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma, a breast implant illness, which is often seen with unilateral seroma or fluid collection in one breast with pain and ruptured textured silicone Allergan implant. In these cases, surgery should include total capsulectomy, including removal of the capsule from the chest wall and the periosteum of the ribcage.
Notable clinical signs of ruptured silicone again can include pain, increased swelling, redness or even extracapsular spread of silicone through the capsule and into the subdermis which can leave a purple or bluish hue tinge to the skin. The patient should be concerned with exposure and skin necrosis.
In any case, Dr. Linder has been performing breast reconstruction for ruptured implants for over 27 years, performing thousands of these surgeries in his Beverly Hills practice. He is a breast revision and reconstructive surgical world-renowned specialist, having placed well over 15,000 implants in patients from over 46 countries.
For more information regarding ruptured breast implants or to schedule a consultation with Dr. Linder, give us a call at (310) 275-4513 or feel free to contact us via email.