Choose your weapons. Cosmetic Surgeon Angelica Kavouni told us about implants
2005, MaximView PDF
Related procedures
Cosmetic surgeon Angelica Kavouni told us about implants! (We only asked for directions)
Silicone
A bag of silicone gel is placed under fatty tissue in the breast. The first implant was done in 1962, but it only took off with the "real" - feeling implants of the 80s. The outer part of the implant has a rough texture to stop it going hard.
Saline
Popular in the 90s, after silicone was linked to cancer. The implant is filled with saline solution, which doesn't harden like silicone. But saline bags can sometimes rupture, or make a sloshing noise when the patient moves.
Expanders
The inflatable breast is an envelope with a valve under the skin. By piercing the breast, saline can be fed in, or bled out, to increase or reduce its size. This is normally used for reconstruction after a mastectomy.
Stem-cell breasts
By 2015 it may be possible to "grow" enhanced breasts from female stem cells. Tissue would grow on a hydrogel scaffold that would disintegrate in time, leaving larger breasts made from the patient's own cells.
