Breast Implants in the Past and Present

Breast implants are one of the most socially acceptable forms of body modification. It is also the most commonly performed cosmetic surgery. In the United States around 3% of women have breast implants and around 300,000 American women get breast implant surgery each year. The number of breast augmentation procedures performed rose somewhere around 40% from the year 2004 to 2005. Middle aged women are more likely to get the procedure done as well as women living in mountain or pacific states. The history of breast implants is longer than you would initially think. In the 1890's Robert Gersuny, an Austrian doctor, used paraffin injections as a form of breast augmentation. The paraffin injections were an absolute disaster, after a while it would harden and become lumpy as well as it also caused infection quite easily. Then, in 1895 an Austrian-German surgeon by the name of Vincenz Czerny experimented with transplanting adipose tissue, or in other words fat. He used the patient's adipose tissue from a lipoma, a benign tumor, to fix the symmetry of her breasts after removing a tumor from one of them.

However, this type of surgery was not particularly successful either since the body had a tendency to reabsorb the fat. In the 1940's and 50's, thanks to the appeal of voluptuous starlets, there was suddenly a high demand for breast augmentation. This time doctors and surgeons experimented with different types of synthetic sponges. This too was a disaster and highly dangerous since not only was there a possibility of infection but also of cancer. For a short while after that they tried implanting a huge variety of odd substances, everything from ivory to glass balls to wool, in a desperate attempt to find something that would work. Needless to say they were all failures. During WWII Japanese Geishas would inject their breasts with silicone. This trend eventually caught on in the United States as well, but due to the complications it would lead to it did not last long. Finally in the 60's both the silicone gel filled sac and saline filled sac implants were invented. The silicone gel implant was subject to class-action lawsuits after many patients found they had severe systematic health problems following their breast augmentations. These days the types of breast implants available fall into the two categories of silicone filled and saline filled. Both types of implant have a silicone shell, called a lumen, and some even have a double shell. Saline implants are filled with a sterile saline solution and are either pre filled, filled during surgery or filled during surgery with a valve to adjust saline volume post-surgery. Silicone implants are filled with silicone gel and are either single lumen and prefilled, double lumen with the inner shell prefilled and the outer filled during surgery, double lumen with the outer shell prefilled and the inner shell filled during surgery and adjustable via valve post-surgery or highly cohesive silicone gel. Highly cohesive silicone gel implants, also called gummy bear implants, are still awaiting FDA approval but differ from traditional implants in that if they rupture the gel will not rupture. Breast implants, like all forms of body modification, have possible side effects. However, for many these possible side effects do not outweigh the good of the procedure. As long as you are informed regarding the pros and cons breast augmentation can be a viable and rewarding surgery.