Many women undergo augmentation mammoplasty. Nowadays, the techniques are much safer and the results are much more gratifying, since breast augmentation not only influences the physique but also the psychological satisfaction of the patient.
What is augmentation mammoplasty?
Augmentation mammoplasty or breast augmentation is an intervention aimed at achieving an improvement in the volume and shape of the female breast.
Thanks to the high biotechnological level in the development of the implants used, this intervention achieves, with high safety and durability, very gratifying and satisfactory results. In this way, women can recover the harmony and balance in their figure, increasing the volume and modifying the shape of their breasts, while maintaining a natural shape, feel and appearance.
Aesthetic and psychological importance of augmentation mammoplasty
Any aesthetic intervention is born out of a concern to improve the physical appearance which, undoubtedly, has an impact on the emotional health of the patient. Generally, women who consult aesthetic level for breast augmentation are placed in two groups:
- Young patients who wish to increase their volume.
- Women who, after pregnancy and breastfeeding, have suffered a loss of breast volume and a fall of the same.
In addition to these cases, there are two others in which augmentation mammoplasty has a real impact on the patient’s health and well-being:
- Tuberous breast syndrome and other malformations of breast development, the frequency of which is estimated to affect between 10 and 20% of patients who consult for breast augmentation.
- In cases of breast reconstruction when the prosthesis or expander-prosthesis procedure is used to reconstruct the mastectomized breast, being generally necessary the symmetrization of both breasts. The addition of an implant in the healthy breast seeks to symmetrize the shape and projection in the short, medium and long term with respect to the diseased breast.
Is it always necessary to use prostheses to augment the breast or is it possible to use options other than breast implants?
According to specialists in Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery, breast implants are the safest procedure with the most predictable result among the current options for breast augmentation surgery. In cases in which the woman admits a very discreet or limited result in volume, and informing that she will probably need more than one intervention in her volume increase, the use of fat from her own body by means of the lipofilling technique can be considered. The fat, to date, serves more as a complement in augmentation surgery, mastopexy, replacement or explantation of the prosthesis, rather than as a unique technique for the patient to achieve a breast augmentation. It must be taken into account that between 30 and 40% of the fat is reabsorbed, so it may be necessary, after about six months, to perform a second session of lipofilling. It should also be noted that the injection of autologous fat will increase the volume of the breasts but in no case modify the shape and position of the same, which is only possible with prostheses.
Nor can they be performed with hyaluronic acid, so advertised by aesthetic doctors a few years ago in breast augmentation, as it was banned by the Spanish Medicines Agency (AEMPS) in 2012, as it hindered the radiological detection of breast cancer and its follow-up.