When breast implants are not needed anymore, where there has been a poor result from previous surgery, a complication, or where results have simply deteriorated with time, you may need to have your implants out. This creates a cosmetic problem in itself. There may be empty sagging breast tissue with a loss of shape.
This is an example of removing 12-year old textured breast implants in a patient who had also previously had a breast uplift (also termed a mastopexy) many years ago under the care of another surgeon. She had never liked the result and the implants had been too big. She presented a difficult and challenging situation as previous surgery had compromised the blood supply to the tissue. She had marked redundancy of her breast tissue over the old implants. She had misshapen areolae. The implants were also out of position, and far too high on her chest. I planned her surgery very carefully, and the actual operation took just under 3-hours, with an overnight stay before being allowed home. During the operation I carried out a full explantation with the surrounding capsules, and then carried out a redo mastopexy keeping the nipple tissue alive on a bipedicled flap. The implants and associated material were completely removed, her skin excess was then removed too, but I preserved the maximum breast tissue possible. This allowed me to use her own breast tissue to re-shape her breasts to give her a nice breast contour again without any implants. She has told me that she is absolutely delighted with the outcome. This is the result at just under 4-months post surgery, revealing a good shape again without implants.
