The inconvenient truth about silicone breast implants: lessons from the PIP scandal.

The inconvenient truth about silicone breast implants: lessons from the PIP scandal.

Goals/Purpose: Breast Augmentation with implants is probably the most performed cosmetic surgery in the world. Unfortunately, silicone breast implants were target of unscrupulous businessmen leading to a large scandal with the PIP implants. We present a retrospective analysis of over 3900 patients who had PIP implants with us for cosmetic breast enlargement surgery.

Methods/Technique: We analyzed 3900 patients with PIP implants and with 800 replacements in the year 2012. We have also analyzed over 400 breast capsules removed from this patients when the implants were replaced (Figure 1). We have also analyzed the implants shell and gel under scanning electronic microscope (Figure 2).

Results/Complications: We found 16% rupture rate in the first 3 years so far. The implants seemed to have a micro leaking even when there were no ruptured.¹ The capsulectomies did not lead to any additional benefit to these patients. In all cases, a successful correction of the previous problems was achieved without any complications in this series.

Conclusion: The PIP implants are probably substandard to what we believe is an optimal device. In all patients where the implants were replaced, the patients were able to have a good result. All breast implants still fail to present adequate data in terms of leaking and safety for patients. There was leaking in non-ruptured implants. There is not sufficient data on leaking rates for breast implants from all manufacturers what is a very alarming situation for surgeons and patients.

Figure 1 – Microscope image of capsula in a patient with a non-ruptured PIP implant. We can verify the presence of leaking silicone to the breast tissue.

Figure 2 – Scanning Electronic Microscope image of PIP implants shell revealing a fracture and leaking in a macroscopically not ruptured implant.