Silent Single PIP Rupture – Implant Removal and Replacement Surgery

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 BirminghamBristolBuckinghamshireGlasgowLondon Harley StreetLeedsManchester and Northampton.

This is a video of implant removal and replacement surgery containing a silent, single PIP rupture. The patient had her 330cc PIP implants inserted back in 2005. Mr Richards inspects and removes the old scar at the beginning of the surgery, which has healed quite well, but is still too long in his opinion.
To achieve a similar sized appearance in this patient, the implants need to be a bit bigger than 330cc, as PIPs usually are bigger than their size states. The first capsule is opened and instantly we see the trademark creamy fluid which we only ever see around ruptured PIP implants. The patient didn’t know her implant was ruptured so we call this a silent rupture. As the implant is removed, Mr Richards finds the location of the rupture and realises it is quite small. It is less than half a centimetre, snd he even gets some forceps and pokes into the implant through the origin of the rupture.
The rupture was small, which meant there was a lack of creamy fluid within the actual implant, as it only had a small rupture. This leads us to believe it is an early rupture. As time passes, the ruptures get bigger and more creamy fluid is produced and gets into the shell of the implant. The second implant is then removed, which is in tact, with just the standard deflation and gel bleed, which is very typical of a PIP implant.
The implants are compared at the end of the operation and we check the ruptured one in a bit more detail. We do notice some creamy fluid has got into the shell of the implant, that wasn’t visible when we first looked. Despite the notion that the implant had ruptured very recently, there was still a considerable difference in the colour of the implants, with the ruptured one being a much darker shade of yellow. The more implants we remove, the more we learn, and it seems as soon as an implant ruptures, the colour starts to change immediately.