Facelift Surgery (Rhytidectomy)

PIP Implants Findings & Facts about Manufacturing Faults

26th January 2012

Facelift Surgery

Examine the scientific reasons why PIP Implants rupture with renowned plastic surgeon Mr. Adrian Richards of Aurora Clinics, Buckinghamshire, London and Northampton. In this video, Mr. Richards looks at facts behind the recent PIP breast implants controversy including why the outer silicone shells of PIP implants are thinner than best breast implant brands (like Nagor and Allergan) causing silicone gel bleed; what exactly might be inside the breast implant if PIPs contain industrial grade substandard silicone and why did the PIP brand manufacture them in this way? Using findings from Aurora Clinics cosmetic surgery and PIP implants latest news. For more information, please contact Aurora Clinics on 0800 328 5743 or info@aurora-clinics.co.uk

Transcript

Hello, my name is Adrian Richards. I am a plastic surgeon and the Surgical Director of Aurora Clinics.

 

Now since Christmas, we’ve seen a lot of patients with PIP implants, and I’m removing and replacing a lot of these. I thought I’d just talk to you about some of the findings we’re noting with the PIP implants.

 

The first thing is we are recording the serial numbers of all the PIP implants we remove. The serial number is a number etched on the back of the PIP implants. So we’re encouraging all surgeons within the Aurora group and other plastic surgeons throughout the country to get this data because this tells us which batch number the PIP implants are that are failing and rupturing. So, hopefully, we’ll be able to get more data to you and be able to give you more up-to-date information about the state of your implants.

 

Now, the first thing we’re noticing is that nine out of ten of the implants have got problems. Mostly, about 80%, it’s gel bleed, 70% to 80% is gel bleed, and 20% roughly are ruptured in our experience and about 10% are intact and fine.

 

Now, it’s important to understand how breast implants are made. There are two main companies from America where you can buy medical grade silicone, and obviously it’s very expensive medical grade silicone because it has been tested and very pure. What it looks like PIP were doing was buying some medical grade silicone but mixing it with industrial grade silicone, perhaps used for either mattresses or hand cream. Now, this silicone was about a twentieth of the price of the medical grade silicone, so you can see that the price of the implants6 would be much less.

 

The other thing they were doing is decreasing the dips that these silicone implants were having. So, when you make a silicone implant, you dip it. It’s dipped in a silicone mixture and also a sealant mixture which stops the silicone gel inside coming through the shell of the implant. The shell is made by multiple dips. The silicone implant is dipped in, it gets a coating of the silicone, and it’s then left to dry.

 

It looks what PIP did is decreased the amount of dips, but really importantly, probably leave the sealant dip out on some of the breast implants which then allows the silicone from inside the implant, the gel, to come out and lie on the surface of the implant.

 

So, when you see some videos of me doing this, we’ve videoed the cases we’ve done, and you can see in nine out of ten cases we have a lot of silicone gel bleed, which is silicone coming through and lying on the capsule of the outer layer of the implant, and this silicone is then free to be taken up by the body, particularly in the lymph nodes. So, as I say, nine out of ten of the implants have got significant gel bleed. Some of the high profile PIP implants seem to be okay, and I videoed those.

 

Now, we are seeing a batch of implants and by getting the serial numbers we’re getting sort of a developing a bit of a pattern of the worst performing breast implants, and it seems to be these were between 2005 and 2009, the implants were performing very badly. In this period, we’re seeing a lot of ruptures. So early ruptures when you really wouldn’t expect it in this sort of cohort of patients who had the surgery in that time.

 

So, I think what’s happened is as the company have gone on and on, the quality of the material, both the gel inside the implant and the shell itself has deteriorated until we got to the stage where the problem was picked up and the implants were stopped being manufactured.

 

If you would like any more information about PIP implants, please contact us either at our website or via email.

 

We’re going to keep collecting the data. I’m encouraging all surgeons around the UK to keep the data, so hopefully we should have much more information available for you about PIP implants, which ones are particularly prone to rupture and which ones are safe. I do think, overall, certainly the patients I’m seeing, nine out of ten of the patients have got significant gel bleed, and it’s only these very high profile implants we’ve seen resistant to it.

 

Thanks for watching the video. Please feel free to get in contact with us if you feel we can help you with your PIP implant related issue.