The history of breast implants goes back almost 50 years. Breast implants have allowed women to achieve personal goals in regard to their bodies’ form, whether it has been to improve their appearance, correct developmental abnormalities or reconstruct their breasts after mastectomy.
For the first 25 years, there were limited options as to the size of breast implants. This has changed. The last 25 years have seen many improvements in selection and design. Multiple profiles and shapes of breast implants have been developed to provide improved ability to individualize the implant to different body types. There has been almost a year by year increase in the different types of silicone gel implants and they now come with both a smooth and textured surface. They can be either round ( shaped more like an oval than a sphere) or now anatomically shaped. The cohesive gel were made available in the early 1990’s and implants are filled with a silicone material that is similar to gelatin. The anatomic silicone gel implants are filled with a firmer material compared to the candy known as a “Gummy Bear”. This increase in firmness allows them to hold a shape similar to the female breast. Together these implants have given us much more laterality in choosing the implant that will be most appropriate for any specific patient’s needs. They add more options in dealing with different body and breast shapes.
A new saline implant called the IDEAL implant has been developed to be more natural appearing and feeling as compared it the saline implant. The traditional saline implants are now less popular as a consequence of a texture which has a less natural feel than silicone gel implants. In thinner patient you could feel and sometimes see folds and wrinkles with the old generation saline implant. The IDEAL implant has been in clinical use since 2009 and is FDA approved as are all of the implants discussed in this article. It is filled with saline but has an internal supporting structure that controls the movement of the saline and supports the implant edges reducing folds and wrinkling providing a more natural result.
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