Breast Plastic Surgery - Breast Implant Repair or Revision Surgery

Regardless of the type of implant, it is likely that women with implants will need to have one or more additional breast plastic surgeries (re-operations) over the course of their lives. Most common indications for re-operations have included major or minor complications, capsular contracture treatment, and replacement of ruptured/deflated implants. Re-operation rates are predictably more frequent in breast reconstruction cases due to the dramatic changes in the soft-tissue envelope and anatomical breast borders after mastetcomy, particularly when patients have received adjuvant XRT. Breast cancer patients also frequently undergo staged procedures for reconstruction of the nipple-areola complex (NAC) and symmetry procedures on the opposite breast.

It appears that re-operation rates in breast plastic surgery cosmetic cases can be improved by more carefully matching individual patients' soft-tissue characteristics to the type and size of implants used. Using appropriate device selection and proper technique, re-operation rates at up to seven years followup have been reported as low as 3%, as compared with the 20 percent re-operation rate at 3 years in the most recent Food and Drug Administration study.