Breast augmentation surgery has increased by 476 percent since 1992, the largest increase in any type of plastic surgery1. The FDA estimates that more than 2 million women in the United States have had breast augmentation surgery. In the year 2000 alone, 200,000 American women had their breasts augmented, twice as many women as had face lifts. Breast augmentation has been taking place for over 100 years as women try to make up for what they feel are physical inadequacies, or try to keep up with modern fashion trends.
Breast augmentation is not without its problems. As techniques have changed over the years, so have the deleterious side effects of breast augmentation, from hardening of paraffin injected into the breast, silicone leakage from newer implants, and migration of implants on the physical end of the spectrum, to infections, hematomas, seromas and disfiguring capsular contractures on the physiological end of the spectrum. Women have endured much in the quest of the perfect figure.
This research will examine a history of breast augmentation techniques, with their concomitant problems, and the techniques of breast augmentation surgery. The preparation of the patient for surgery, the surgical techniques used, the after care, and the possible complications are discussed. It will be seen that each case is unique in its needs, techniques required, and outcomes, and each surgeon similarly unique in the methods selected for the procedure, determined in part by the patientÆs expected outcomes. No technique is foolproof, and non without risks.
Breast augmentation is not new. It was first tried in the 1890s in Vienna using paraffin injections which often led to infections, a tissue reaction to the paraffin, granuloma formation, and a hardening of the injected material, causing the procedure to rapidly fall out of favor 2. In the 1950s and 1960s, liquid silicone was injected for breast augmentation, but this led t...