Hi, I'm Dr. Frank Lista and welcome to Operating
Room number 1 here at The Plastic Surgery
Clinic.
So lots of patients ask me about implant shape.
So, basically, there are 2 different shapes
of implants.
Implants can either be round or they can teardrop
shaped.
How do we choose?
Well, first of all, the number one rule is,
and if you've seen any of our videos so far
you know the number one rule is, create a
breast that looks beautiful, that has a beautiful
shape and looks natural.
So, every patient gets an implant that's been
determined to be the right implant for them.
How do we decide that?
Well, first of all, implants can either be
round or teardrop so let me show you an example.
Here's a round implant and here's a teardrop-shaped
implant.
You notice this implant is perfectly round.
This implant has a shape that looks like a
teardrop.
Now, this implant, the teardrop implant, is
really useful for patients who have droopiness,
or if they have what we call constricted lower
pole.
Constricted lower pole is a tightness in the
bottom part of the breast.
Because this implant, you see, is more full
at the bottom than it is at the top, it will
stretch out a tight lower pole.
So patients, some patients have what we call
constricted lower pole, or a tuberous breast
deformity, and so those teardrop shape implants
are really important for patients who have
those conditions.
Now what about if you don't have that condition,
what if you have a normal breast?
Well we used to think that teardrop shaped
implants looked more natural than round implants.
But if your breast is normal, 2 new studies
out of Europe have shown that people can't
tell the difference.
What they did is they took a bunch of women
who had round implants and a bunch of women
who had undergone teardrop shaped implants,
they took their photographs, they shuffled
them up, and they showed them to plastic surgeons
and to patients, to women, and they said "can
you guess which implant this is, round or
teardrop?"
And it turned out that if the patient started
off with a normal breast, neither the women
nor the plastic surgeons could tell if the
implant was round or teardrop.
So, what we know then is in a normal-looking
breast, just a small normal breast, people
can't tell the difference between round and
teardrop, they both look the same.
So if they both look the same, we're going
to choose the implant that's safer, and round
implants have a lower complication rate than
teardrop shape implants.
So in a normal breast, a round implant will
look exactly the same as a teardrop shape
implant, we'll choose the safer and that's
usually round.
But your breasts won't look round!
It'll look exactly like a teardrop shape implant.
So, in summary, if you have a normal breast,
we'll choose the safest implant which gives
an equal result: round.
But if you have a special problem like droopiness
or a constricted lower pole or tuberous breast
deformity, we're going to use a teardrop shaped
implant.
The key is pick the implant for the patient
that gives the most natural look possible.
Thanks for watching.
