Hugely Contrasting PIP Implants
Aurora is now part of The Private Clinic, a nationwide group of clinics with over 35 years of experience specialising in Cosmetic Surgery and Skin and a Trust Pilot 5 star rating. For comprehensive information, before and after photos and costs on Implant removal and replacement procedures click here
Our expert Plastic Surgeon Adrian Richards is the Medical Director for The Private Clinic. Clinics are located in Birmingham, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Glasgow, London Harley Street, Leeds, Manchester and Northampton.
The surgery video begins with Mr Adrian Richards (the surgical director of Aurora Clinics) introducing the procedure he is about to perform. We get a bit of back story on the patient, with her having 310cc implants inserted many years ago, and then had them replaced by 410cc implants in 2007. The 410cc breast implants were the infamous PIPs, long before the scandal broke out. She wants to go larger again, as she feels her breasts have lost considerable volume over the years and wants a much fuller breast appearance.
We begin the surgery, with Mr Richards talking about the scar. He measures it, noticing it is very long, and it comes just short of 7cm. There is also a pale area down the side of the breast, which looks a bit like scarring. This would usually be caused by drains, but there are three marks, which is rather unusual so Mr Richards can only guess as to what the marks are from. The scar that was used for the 310cc implants, was re-used for the 410cc implants. This left the scar on the lower part of the breast instead of in the fold as it was originally. Mr Richards however, will keep in this pattern and re-use this scar, although he will shorten in and using a subcuticular stitching technique, he thinks the scar will heal better and look more pleasing to the eye.
Using the cutting diathermy, Mr Richards is opening a pocket to remove the old implant. He believes this one is ruptured, so he has a pot at the ready to collect the creamy fluid we expect to see. As soon as he gets through the tissue, creamy fluid flows out into the container. The whole pot gets full of fluid, which is possibly the most we have seen from a single implant. We know the patient had some pain and discomfort prior to surgery and we expect this to improve greatly immediately after surgery. The implant is in a disastrous state, with multiple ruptures and tears in the shell, with it literally still in one piece as the shell is stuck to the silicone, previously within the implant.
Our patient has had symptoms of a rupture for some time, and by the looks of the implant we can conclude that it has been ruptured for a long time. As the second implant is removed we can see it is not ruptured, and just has some deflation and gel bleed, which is a regular occurrence with PIP implants. We then skip to the end result with our patient having 700cc breast implants, giving her a much rounder and fuller appearance than before.
When comparing the implants at the end of the video we can see the how differently they reacted within our patient. One being ruptured to a severe state and the other in tact with no more than the usual amount of deflation and gel bleed we see in other in tact PIP implants.
This video goes to show how diverse one implant can be to the other, and anyone considering replacement of their implants, we urge you to come and see us, as there are still thousands and thousands of women who are suffering with these below par implants in their body.