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Breast Implant
By admin | December 28, 2007
A breast implant is a prosthesis used to enlarge the size of a woman’s breasts (known as breast augmentation, breast enlargement, mammoplasty enlargement, augmentation mammoplasty or the common slang term boob job) for cosmetic reasons; to reconstruct the breast (e.g. after a mastectomy; or to correct genetic deformities), or as an aspect of male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, breast augmentation is the most commonly performed cosmetic surgical procedure in the United States. In 2006, 329,000 breast augmentation procedures were performed in the U.S.
There are two primary types of breast implants: saline-filled and silicone-gel-filled implants. Saline implants have a silicone elastomer shell filled with sterile saline liquid. Silicone gel implants have a silicone shell filled with a viscous silicone gel. There have been several alternative types of breast implants developed, such as polypropylene string or soy oil, but these are uncommon.
Implants have been used since 1895 to augment the size or shape of women’s breasts. The earliest known implant was attempted by Czerny, using a woman’s own adipose tissue (from a lipoma, a benign growth, on her back).[2] Gersuny tried paraffin injections in 1889, with disastrous results. Subsequently, in the early to mid-1900s, a number of other substances were tried, including ivory, glass balls, ground rubber, ox cartilage, Terylene wool, gutta-percha, Dicora, polyethylene chips, polyvinyl alcohol-formaldehyde polymer sponge (Ivalon), Ivalon in a polyethylene sac, polyether foam sponge (Etheron), polyethylene tape (Polystan) or strips wound into a ball, polyester (polyurethane foam sponge) Silastic rubber, and teflon-silicone prostheses. In recent history, various creams and medicaments have been used in attempts to increase bust size, and Berson in 1945 and Maliniac in 1950 performed a flap-based augmentation by rotating the patient’s chest wall tissue into the breast to add volume. Various synthetics were used throughout the 1950s and 1960s, including silicone injections, which an estimated 50,000 women received. Development of silicone granulomas and hardening of the breasts were in some cases so severe that women needed to have mastectomies for treatment. Women sometimes seek medical treatment for complications up to 30 years after receiving this type of injection.
Topics: breast cancer |
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