Breast implant

From Academic Kids

A breast implant is a prosthesis used in cosmetic surgery to enhance the size and shape of a woman's breasts (known as breast augmentation) or to reconstruct the breast (for example, after a mastectomy, or during male-to-female sex reassignment surgery). There are four types of breast implant:

• Saline-filled, which have a silicone shell filled with sterile saline liquid. These implants are currently the only ones available in the United States.

• Silicone gel-filled, which have a silicone shell filled with silicone gel. They are not currently available for implant in the United States, but future regulation may change this. In the 60 countries outside the United States where silicone implants remain available, they are used in approximately 90% of implant operations. The FDA is conducting clinical trials of a new type of silicone gel implant filled with a new type of silicone called "cohesive silicone gel" that are believed to have decreased incidences of leakage.

• String implant, a third, much less common type of implant. This implant uses a polypropylene material as an implant. String implants are unique in that they cause the breast to continue expanding after surgery, and are preferred by those women who choose to have the largest breasts possible. They are not currently available for implant in the United States, but future regulation may change this.

• Tissue Engineered implant, a new, in development, form of implant. The principle is that cells are taken from the patient themselves, which are then combined with an appropriate scaffold material to produce a Tissue Engineered Breast Implant. The advantage of this method is that there is no risk of leakage or rupture, and the size can remain stable for the lifetime of the patient, a contrast from the silicone or saline filled implants which typically reduce by in the region of 40%. Further coverage may be found within the related links.

Contents

1 History 2 Risks and controversy 3 See also 4 External links

History

Breast implants have been used at least since 1865 to augment the size of women's breasts. The earliest known implant occurred in Germany in which fat from a benign tumor was removed from a woman's back and implanted in her breast. In following years the medical community experimented with implants of various materials, most commonly paraffin. The first use of silicone as breast-implant material may have been by Japanese prostitutes in the period immediately following World War II, who would directly inject silicone into their breasts.

Houston plastic surgeons Thomas Cronin and Frank Gerow developed the first silicone breast prosthesis with the Dow Corning Corporation in 1961 and the first woman was implanted in 1962. The implant was made of a silicone rubber envelope or sac filled with a thick, viscous silicone gel.

Risks and controversy

In the United States, implants from silicone gel were banned by the Food and Drug Administration because of growing concerns about the safety of such implants. More than one million women had availed themselves of the implants at the time of the ban, and the subsequent litigation led manufacturers to agree to a settlement of USD$4.25 billion. The degree of risk associated with silicone-gel breast implants is still a matter of debate within the scientific community.

The health hazards of breast implants have been debated greatly in recent years. Some people believe that breast implants cause such illnesses as autoimmune disease, although both the AMA and FDA have found there to be no evidence of this. [1] (http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/breastimplants/extracapstudy.html). However, documented problems with breast implants include rupture, deflation, infection, scarring and hardening of the implants. [2] (http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/breastimplants/breast_implant_risks_brochure.html)

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, breast augmentation is the most commonly performed cosmetic surgical procedure on women in the United States. In 2002, 236,888 women in the U.S. underwent breast augmentation. [3] (http://www.plasticsurgery.org/public_education/2002-Top-5-Female-Cosmetic-Procedures.cfm) According to the National Institute for Women, one in four silicone implant recipients must undergo surgery, within 5 years, to correct implant problems.

See also

Template:Commons

• breast reconstruction
• breast reduction
• breast fetishism
• body modification
• List of celebrities with breast implants

External links

• U.S. Food and Drug Administration (http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/breastimplants/)
• Medline PLUS (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/breastimplantsbreastreconstruction.html)
• Implant Info (http://www.implantinfo.com)
• Chronology of silicone breast implants (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/implants/cron.html)
• Tissue Engineered breast implants (http://tissue.medicalengineer.co.uk/Natural+Breast+Implants.php)de:Brustvergrößerung

he:שתל סיליקון sv:Bröstimplantat