Breasts

Customized Breast Enhancement

Remodel – Customized Breast Enhancement – Let the Lucas Center, Plastic Surgery offer you a customized approach.

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Are you a breast augmentation patient who either had surgery in the late 1990’s during the silicone false claim crisis or a patient who was misled into thinking that saline is an equivalent to the modern silicone gel implants? Or you were a fan of the 1990’s Bay Watch series and at the time felt that Pamela Anderson’s breast shape and size was the ideal standard. Just like houses with bathrooms and kitchens that seem dated after ten to fifteen years, requiring attention to remodeling to keep the house fresh and modern, so are breast enhancements. Stylistic changes and technology advancement of breast implant materials and fat grafting have come a long way, making your old decisions for your breast enhancement seem out of date and behind the times. Just like clothing styles and cars from the 1990’s seem dated now, so is the oversized sagging breast with saline implants, complete with rippling and pleating requiring an industrial strength bra to keep them in place. Ladies you don’t have to compromise any longer. Does your kitchen and bathroom still have brass fixtures? Then you should not have to put up with these heavy oversized misshapen breasts that are neither comfortable nor stylish. Consult a board certified plastic surgeon to review your options today.

Options not available 10-15 years ago.

First and foremost a modern plastic surgeon who has kept up with the current techniques and evidence based medicine related to breast enhancement will perform a complete tissue based diagnosis of the breast. Gone are the days hopefully of a surgeon standing in front of you without any measurements and eyeballing a one size fits all approach and telling you he or she will make you a “D” cup and you will love it. The facts are the 1990’s approach of shoving in multiple sizers or placing the largest possible smooth round saline implant under the breast without individualizing fit based on the patients breast tissue parameters lead to a revision rate of breast enhancement of 25% which manufacturers submitted to the FDA in the early two thousands. If gallbladders and knee replacements had that high of a revision rate insurance companies and Medicare would have a moratorium on the procedures. Fortunately our though leaders in plastic surgery have evaluated and re-engineered the procedures to minimize complications of capsular contracture, incorrect size placement, and avoidance of soft tissues being permanently thinned and distorted requiring complex revision procedures to correct poor outcomes. Most importantly the surgeon needs to determine the correct diameter of the devise both in width and height. The soft tissue thickness of the upper and lower pole (area above and below the nipple) is important as well as the tissue length from the fold to the nipple-areolar complex. The overall geometry of the chest and breast bone need to be noted requiring modification of procedures. It does not take an engineer to understand a women who is five feet tall and one hundred and ten pounds with a relatively short breast fold to collarbone and narrow chest with minimal breast tissue cannot have the same implant placed as a five feet, nine inch tall female with one hundred and sixty pounds with a wide frame and a large “B” cup breast. Unfortunately some surgeons did feel this way and some still do detracting from a customized approach that minimizes revision rates and unhappy patients.

Three dimensional imaging such as the Vectra has revolutionized my patient education and consultation for breast enhancements.  We can produce a very representative imaging of a women’s breast and torso and with computer simulation can demonstrate how any implant available in the United States can appear with your tissue parameters and allow the patient to see the proposed outcomes before a decision is made. This avoids wrong size surgery and allows patient expectation to be matched thus avoiding revision surgery. However the technology does not exist to provide this information if a breast already has an implant. This simulation also allows patients to see the limitations of an implant alone based on enhancement depending upon the individual’s soft tissue or bony deficiencies. This is where the discussion of fat grafting can be very beneficial to hiding the anatomic variances such as wide sternums that produce wide cleavages to provide an improved outcome and patient satisfaction. We can also demonstrate using a slightly smaller implant which has less weight and drag on poor quality soft tissue and supplementing the overall volume with large volume fat grafting to minimize implant malposition due to failure of soft tissues holding the implant in place.

Breast implants themselves have evolved over the last few decades. Today plastic surgeons can offer patients more options in size, shapes, and types of silicone than ever before also allowing for a more customized approach. I particularly have found the fifth generation silicone gel implants (Gummy Bears) to be particularly useful in petite women and very tall, thin women to exploit the positioning of the implant with differential heights and widths to maximize outcomes. I never use saline implants because they put too much strain on tissues, have excessive rippling, only can function as a round devise and can spontaneously deflate creating emergency surgical situations for patients. Based on clinical evidence, texturing of the implant can reduce capsular contracture, minimizing migration of the devise laterally over time and can maintain pocket size better than a smooth devise. Downsides include late seromas (fluid collections) and possible linkage with a very rare but easily treated form of implant related lymphomas. In my mind the benefits outweigh the small risks with texturing.

Lastly, the techniques of the actual surgery have evolved in the last ten years. These techniques include more precise, less traumatic dissections of the breast pocket, avoiding biofilm (a leading cause of capsular contracture) by minimizing the manipulation of the pockets with implants, and no touch techniques with the surgeon’s hands or patients’ skin on the devises that can minimize revision rates and improve outcomes.

In conclusion if you are a breast enhancement patient and are less than satisfied with your outcome don’t learn to live with compromise explore the modern day breast augmentation procedures available at board certified plastic surgeon’s offices around the country. Remember cell phones, cars, computers and styles have all rapidly evolved for the better compared to the 1990’s refresh yourself you will be glad you did.

For further information into customized breast enhancement procedures please visit www.thelucascenter.com or contact The Lucas Center, Plastic Surgery, PLLC in Knoxville, Tennessee 865 218 6210.

 

(865) 217-0572
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