When electing to have breast augmentation surgery, there’s an important decision that every woman must make before she undergoes surgery. She will have to choose between FDA approved implants, and she should not make this decision lightly!

There are many decisions a woman will have to make when she finally decides to have breast augmentation surgery. She’ll need to carefully select and choose a breast augmentation specialist. She’ll also need to decide which type of incision she wants for her surgery (her surgeon can help her with this decision). And, of course, she will need to choose which type of breast implant she wants for her augmentation. There are only two types of implants currently approved for unrestricted use in the United States. They are silicone gel implants and saline implants. Which is the better implant? That answer depends on many factors she will have to take into consideration.

Silicone gel implants have been under scrutiny since their first use in the 1960’s. Despite their fourteen year ban by the FDA (and subsequent approval for unrestricted use), many people still feel the silicone gel is dangerous inside the body of any person. On the other hand, saline implants have long been regarded as the safest implant currently available. They have held that safety distinction ever since they were first introduced as an alternative implant to silicone gel implants. When it comes to overall safety and risk factors, the majority of medical experts will side with saline implants as the safer between the two. If safety is your number one concern, the saline implant might be the better choice for your surgery.

Do you like scars? Of course not! Nobody likes scarring, especially women undergoing plastic surgery strictly for aesthetic improvement (particularly breast augmentation patients). If minimal scarring is an issue, saline implants will probably be your ideal choice since they are not usually filled with saline until after they have been placed inside the body. Silicone gel implants are pre filled and therefore require larger incisions during the surgery, thus resulting in a higher potential for scarring.

Are there more cobwebs than cash inside your wallet? Is cost a concern? If so, then you have two very good reasons for choosing saline implants.

Saline implants are generally twenty to thirty percent less expensive than silicone gel implants (some believe it’s because silicone gel implants were scrutinized for fourteen years by the FDA, resulting in higher research and development costs). Outside of raw cost, should your saline implant rupture and leak, it will deflate in a matter of days, allowing the woman to detect a ruptured implant almost immediately. Silicone gel implants could leak for years without detection, making them very difficult to detect in case of a rupture. The FDA recommends bi-annual MRIs for women with silicone gel implants. The long term costs of each MRI must be included in the overall cost of the augmentation surgery, which makes silicone gel implants even more costly than saline implants.

The only area where silicone gel implants are unanimously appreciated over saline implants is in the area of how they feel in the hand and how they look when they move. Because silicone gel implants use thick filler (silicone gel), they move and feel much more like a real breast. Since they mimic real breast tissue far better than saline implants, they are the most requested implant in the United States.

Want to learn more? You should visit with a board-certified plastic surgeon that specializes in breast augmentation surgery. He or she can discuss the latest information regarding both types of implants.

Author Bio: Please visit these pages: southern california breast revision, breast augmentation recovery, and southern california breast surgeon.

Category: Womens Interest
Keywords: silicone, gel, saline, comparison, breast, implants