Procedures - Cohesive Gel Breast Implants

Cohesive Gel Breast Implants: The New Silicone

Great news for women wanting breast implants! The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved the use of Silimed's Cohesive Gel implants. These implants are filled with a new type of silicone gel. The old silicone gel was very liquid. If the shell of the implant was ruptured, the gel would "run out". This new Cohesive Gel is more the consistency of Jell-O. When you put a Cohesive Gel implant on the table and cut it open, you have two sections. Many women feel safer using this type of implant.

Silicone gel implants were originally developed in Houston by Drs Gerow and Cronin. (Dr. Coffey trained with Dr. Gerow during his Plastic Surgery residency at Baylor.) Dr. Gerow developed silicone gel implants was because they were so lifelike. The "feel" of silicone gel is much better than saline. In fact, most women would have a hard time feeling a gel implant once everything has healed.

Silicone gel implants also make the operation less invasive. Since the silicone gel scare in the early 1990's, saline implants have been used almost exclusively for first time augmentations. Due to the nature of saline implants (feeling like "water balloons"), most plastic surgeons started putting saline implants "under the muscle". The muscle gives extra "camouflage" often needed for the saline implants.

With silicone gel implants, almost all women can have their implants placed "over the muscle". This placement has several advantages:

• It does not require any cutting or damage to the chest muscles. This is important because recovery from the operation is much faster. There is much less pain and limitations of movement after surgery.
   
• When you put the implants "under the muscle", flexing the pectoral muscles can cause the implants to "jump" a lot.
   
• Gel naturally assumes the shape of a normal breast, because it is a gel. Saline implants always stay round, even with the teardrop shells. Water will not compress.
   
• Size for size, silicone gel implants are lighter than saline. In fact, silicone gel is almost the same density as fat and breast tissue.

Plastic surgeons have been putting in the old-fashioned silicone gel implants in breast cancer patients for many years now. So far, there has been little evidence that all the scary reports from the early law suites were true.

All Dr. Coffey's patients with silicone gel implants have done extremely well. In fact, he has no patients with silicone gel implants that have had any of those mysterious diseases. Interestingly enough, many of his patients who currently have saline implants (because they did not have a choice earlier) are coming back around to have the new Cohesive Gel implants placed.

If you decide you might like more information on these new Cohesive Gel implants, please email Dr. Coffey or call the office. We will be happy to send you information or set up a free cosmetic consultation so you can talk to the doctor. We understand some people will have reservations about silicone gel. That's normal. We can give you an excellent result with saline implants. Silicone gel is just "the Cadillac".

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