Philip Turton, a leading cosmetic breast surgeon based in Leeds, specializes in breast implant removal, often combined with uplift procedures (mastopexy).
Whether due to deterioration in breast shape, implant problems, ifestyle changes, health concerns, or cosmetic preferences, Mr. Turton offers comprehensive options tailored to individual needs, ensuring optimal outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Breast implant removal, also known as explantation, is a decision that many patients arrive at for various reasons.
While most patients opt to renew their implants after a certain period, some choose not to replace them. This decision often depends on personal, medical, or aesthetic factors.
Here are some common reasons:
After explantation, breasts typically appear smaller, flatter, and less full. Skin laxity and a lower nipple position are common, especially in patients who have had implants for an extended period. This is why mastopexy should be considered at the time.
These changes can be more pronounced for those with large implants or thin breast tissue. For patients concerned about these outcomes, consult with Mr Turton for his opinion on performing a simultaneous breast uplift to restore shape and improve nipple position.
Mr. Turton employs meticulous surgical techniques to ensure patient safety and satisfaction:
In cases where full removal is unnecessary or risky, only the affected parts of the capsule are removed. This minimizes trauma to surrounding tissues where risks of full removal are excessive for the appearance found, or technical risk of trying to remove ultra-thin normal capsule that is plastered to this intercostal tissue and ribs. With Mr Turton’s expertise he will adapt surgery dynamically in keeping with the findings
The risks of serious complications from explantation are usually quite small. The main problem is the cosmetic impact for patients who do not have uplift, and that must not be ignored.The operation is usually always carried out under a general anaesthetic. If the implants are being removed due to problems such as capsular contraction or rupture then there may be extra work to do to remove capsule tissue.If total capsulectomy or en-bloc capsulectomy is being considered or is required, then the surgery always takes longer and is quite painstaking. Removing the capsule in its entirety is essential in cases related to lymphoma in the capsule (BIA-ALCL).
This is called en-bloc capsulectomy. It is always a more complex operation and when the implants are in front of the muscle, some muscle tissue is likely to be removed that is adherent to the capsule.When the implants are sub-pectoral (behind the muscle) and enbloc capsulectomy is done, the back layer is often densely adherent to the ribs, cartilage, and intercostal muscles. Removal of this back layer can often still be accomplished. But there always has to be the caveat that if there is a concern that it is too dangerous to remove it in places then Mr Turton as your specialist would leave some portions of normal looking capsule to mitigate risk of complications- this might be due to the risk of pneumothorax for example.
When a full capsulectomy or en-bloc capsulectomy is done the breast pocket, the space where the old implant used to be, is generally of a far greater diameter than before.The normal boundaries having been lost, mean that even if new implants are to be inserted the position of those implants tends to fall to the edges of the space- so there is a deterioration in the cosmetic result compared to someone who did not have the capsule removed. But the simultaneous mastopexy operation without any immediate implant replacement reshapes the breast.For this reason, we will sometimes recommend not to remove the capsule when it is safe not to do so. If there is an area of capsule inflammation, Mr Turton would usually remove this for histology testing if there was any reason to do so- this is called partial capsulectomy.
While breast implant removal is generally safe, it is not without risks. Potential complications include:
In some cases, the operation may require leaving some capsule tissue if removal poses excessive risks, such as near vital structures.But there is no evidence that leaving normal capsule poses any health risk.
For patients seeking to restore some breast volume after explantation, lipomodelling offers a natural solution:
Considerations: Lipomodelling is expensive and time-intensive, requiring a 4-month gap between sessions. Patients may have limited areas of fat that can be safely harvested. Potential risks include contour irregularities, fat necrosis, and interference with future mammograms.
Lipomodelling is a technique performed under general anaesthetic. Each procedure gives a small improvement only and is expensive because of the hospital, surgical and anaesthetic costs each time. It costs around £5000-£7000 per session.
You therefore must be realistic as to what it can achieve. Think carefully about your expectations and then discuss them with Mr Turton.
Localised deposits of fat usually from the lower back, bottom and outer thighs are removed by gentle liposuction, centrifuged to remove oil and blood and then the pure fat is injected in tiny quantities into the thin layer of residual breast tissue that you have and the muscle behind the breast.
Fat is a living tissue and so must be injected into tissue (not the empty space where the implant was). The injection technique is critical to achieve permanent survival of the new cells within the breast.
Mr Turton injects the fat as multiple layers of adjacent thin long threads like spaghetti, and only a limited amount of fat can be injected at one operation.
The new fat cells will only survive for up to 48-hours without being in direct contact with blood vessels to provide oxygen and nutrition; new blood vessels need to form to supply their longer term needs and this process is strongly inhibited in smokers, which would be a complete contraindication to the procedure.
For every 200cc of fat that is collected, about 100cc will remain after centrifuge treatment for re-injection, and then of this around 50% is reabsorbed or broken down by your body before it develops a blood supply in the tissue and becomes stable.
Because only about 100cc can be injected per session, you effectively gain 50cc of volume for every 200cc of liposuction procedure and so you would need 3 lipomodelling sessions to get a noticeable improvement of just 150cc.
When doing this on both breasts, the availability of a harvestable fat source becomes a limiting factor in slim patients.
You must wait 4-months in between each session to allow each fat graft time to be incorporated by the breast, so 3 sessions take a year and the costs will come to around £8500-£9000.
The incisions used for lipomodelling are tiny (3-4mm). Most patients are discharged the same day and apart from fairly extensive bruising and tenderness at the site the fat was taken they have minimal problems.
You can normally go back to work within a few days with the majority of the bruising and swelling going after a week and rest being minor, resolving slowly over a few months. Care must be taken to prevent infection.
Uncommon risks include contour irregularities under the skin from where the fat was taken. Wearing a tight spandex garment reduces the chances of this. Numbness and pigmentation changes may occur but these should settle after several months.
Very rare risks might be unknown with lipomodelling – when the procedure was first introduced around a decade ago, there was a theoretical risk that it could slightly increase the risk of breast cancer.
This is probably because it was being injected into breasts after mastectomy or lumpectomy for cancer. Whilst this risk has not translated into any significant risk of cancer in practice one must remember that it is theoretically possible because fat contains some cells known as ‘Adipocyte-derived Regenerative Cells’.
These are more like primitive stem cells and although the evidence to date does not suggest a higher cancer risk, good quality long term studies are required to prove this although are unlikely to be undertaken.
You will see instant improvement to shape, but initial fat and swelling occurs in everyone giving an artificial impression.
Over the next 3-months as fat is resorbed and the remaining fat develops a surrounding blood supply and becomes permanent, you will settle into a final volume that is usually 50% of the original fat injected.
The process of liposuction is traumatic to the fatty tissue and some of the cells will not survive after they have been suctioned, separated from the blood and oil by being centrifuged and injected back into your body.
If it is repeated too quickly you will experience hard lumps of dead fat (fat necrosis) and oil cysts will form. Lipomodelling to the breast always causes tiny micro-calcifications to appear on future mammograms which can interfere with assessment for the early changes of breast cancer, lead to extra tests such as biopsies to work out the cause and cause you anxiety.
Organise your consultation with Mr Turton: Specialist Consultation Booking Form
The decision to remove breast implants can be emotionally challenging. Mr. Turton encourages patients to:
With over two decades of experience and a reputation for cosmetic breast surgery excellence, Philip Turton provides skilled, compassionate, patient-centered care.
Whether addressing medical concerns, managing cosmetic outcomes, or guiding patients through their surgical journey, Mr. Turton’s expertise ensures you are in safe hands.
For consultations or more information about implant removal capsulectomy and uplift options, contact Philip Turton in Leeds today.
*Please note that these general example photos are all from Mr Turton’s patients and have not been altered in any way. The results are unique to every individual and take each patient’s personal expectations, circumstances, starting points and body morphology into consideration.
This lady had Breast Augmentation in 2006 with 295cc implants. She developed capsular contraction of her left implant after a pregnancy and had got gradually bigger as had put on weight. She wanted her implants out and so I have done a full capsulectomy and a full wise-pattern mastopexy.
This lady had capsular contraction of her 14yr old 300cc implants with marked roundness on the right. She has had full capsulectomies to get back to normal soft tissue and exchanged for the BLite lighter-weight implants which were 410cc in size. At 280gms they actually weighed less than her old implants (300gms) and give her a very natural look without extra sag.