Saline Implants

The first step in breast augmentation implants is to choose between the so-called cilicone and saline prostheses. As it was already mentioned in the section Types of Breast Implants, the main alternative to silicone filling is physilological solution (0.9% solution of salt in water).

Implants filled with physical solution are called saline. In distinction from silicone ones, they are produced with no filling or hermiticity but empty and with a hole in the cover.

The surgeon places the empty cover of the implant in the breast and fills it through a tube right in the patient’s body. The breast becomes bigger in the doctor’s eyes, and when the necessary esthetic result is achieved the tube is removed, and the hole in the cover is sealed with a valve.
Peculiar properties of saline implants in some cases allow for their placement without any incisions on the breast at all. There can be an incision done in the navel area and the prostheses drawn through to the breast. With silicone implants this is not possible.

The saline implant’s valve is considered to get out of order with the course of time and start leaking. Physical solution in this case is consumed by surrounding tissues but the breast looses its volume and the prosthesis must be removed or replaced. Average lifetime of saline implants is seven years.

In France, just as in the US, application of saline implants was limited, and there have recently appeared non-valved saline prostheses that do not lose the filling. But they are more solid than silicone prostheses by touch. Besides, at work them there disappears the main advantage of physical solution implants – possibility to adjust the optimal size of the patient’s breast, variate the filling within 10-15% right on the surgical table.

Another peculiarity of saline implants are folds. The saline implant is easiest to be compared polyethylene bag filled with water. If you lift such a bag with two fingers then its walls on the top are wrinkled in large folds. The saline implant behaves the same way in the woman’s breast.
The vertical position allows to hide the folds of the upper pole if the pole is placed under the muscle. But when the body is bent the folds can move and still be seen on the skin surface.
Besides this patients to whom saline prostheses were implanted often complaint about gurgling of water flowing back and forth inside the implant. This problem seems to be salved by very tight filling of the implant. But in this case all advantages of softness by touch will disappear because the implant will become non-compressible.

The main advantage of such prostheses in comparison to silicone ones is their naturalness. A human being by 2/3 consists of salty water while silicone is an artificial material. But one should remember that the cover around salty water in such implants is still made of silicone.