Historically the choice for women considering breast augmentation were either saline or silicone devices. These very contrasting breast implants choices have very well known advantages and disadvantages. Saline breast implants offer the most economical approach to the procedure with aesthetic device issues such as rippling, an unnatural feel in some patients and the risk of an eventual dramatic and inconvenient failure event. Silicone breast implants offer an improved and more natural feel and no risk of a dramatic deflation event albeit at a higher surgical cost.
Along has come the Ideal implant which marries characteristics of both saline and silicone breast implants. The advantages of the Ideal breast implant over either traditional saline or silicone implants are numerous. They offer the benefits of both types of implants without any of their downsides. The Ideal implant has an external feel that is similar to that of silicone implants (no rippling) but without the use of any silicone filler material. For those women that may harbor some persistent concerns about silicone gel, this provides peace of mind. It will also not suffer a complete implant deflation which lets the patient know their implant has a problem (partial deflation) but yet will not go completely flat.
How does the Ideal implant achieve these improved physical characteristics over the traditional saline breast implant? It is in its proprietary and clever internal design. The implants has an internal structure which has an inner shell around the inner chamber which contains the inner saline filler and an outer shell around an outer chamber which holds the outer saline filler. Between these two shells are several baffle shells. This specialized type of inner structure controls the movement of saline inside the implant.
Even in a saline breast implant which has been filled to the point of stretching out the silicone containment bag (shell) and appears full, fluid does move around in waves inside it. But why does a traditional saline implant have ripples and feel so soft and extremely pliable? Using the well known Bernoulli’s Principle, the pressure in a moving fluid decreases as its speed increases, and increases as speed decreases. Thus the saline in a traditional implant moves very rapidly and therefore exerts a low pressure on the outer shell. The innovation of the Ideal breast implant is that its internal structure chambers and baffles slow the movement of the saline down and, as a result, increases the pressure on the outer shell which dramatically reduces wrinkling and makes it feel more firm. (like a silicone breast implant)
Such fluid dynamics also affect the shape of the implant. The Ideal implant maintains a higher profile with lower edges and better upper pole fullness than that of a silicone implant. It does not develop the so called ‘ash tray’ effect that almost all silicone implants do that occurs when the implant is laying on a flat surface.
Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana