Breast implant
prosthesis used to change the size, shape, and contour of a person's breast
A breast implant is a prosthesis used to change the size, shape, and contour of a person's breast. In reconstructive plastic surgery, breast implants can be placed to restore a natural-looking breast following a mastectomy, to correct congenital defects and deformities of the chest wall or, cosmetically, to enlarge the appearance of the breast through breast augmentation surgery.
Complications of implants may include breast pain, rashes, skin changes, infection, rupture, cosmetic changes to the breasts such as asymmetry and hardness, and a fluid collection around the breast.
A rare complication associated with textured surfaced implants and polyurethane foam-covered implants is a type of lymphoma (cancer of the immune system) known as breast implant-associated anaplastic large-cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL).
There are four general types of breast implants, defined by their filler material: saline solution, silicone gel, structured and composite filler. The saline implant has an elastomer silicone shell filled with sterile saline solution during surgery; the silicone implant has an elastomer silicone shell pre-filled with viscous silicone gel; structured implants use nested elastomer silicone shells and two saline-filled lumen; and the alternative composition implants featured miscellaneous fillers, such as hydrogel, soy oil or polypropylene string.
In surgical practice, for the reconstruction of a breast, the tissue expander device is a temporary breast prosthesis used to form and establish an implant pocket for the future permanent breast implant. For the correction of male breast defects and deformities, the pectoral implant is the breast prosthesis used for the reconstruction and the aesthetic repair of a man's chest wall (see: gynecomastia and mastopexy).
Uses
A mammoplasty procedure for the placement of breast implant devices has three purposes:
primary reconstruction: the replacement of breast tissues damaged by trauma (blunt, penetrating, blast), disease (breast cancer), and failed anatomic development (tuberous breast deformity).
revision and reconstruction: to revise (correct) the outcome of a previous breast reconstruction surgery.
“Breast implant” enters the record as prosthesis used to change the size, shape, and contour of a person's breast. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Breast, implant and prosthesis can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q749053. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Breast implant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.