Breast Implants vs. Fat Injections for Larger Breasts

Fat injections are a growing option for refining breast appearance. To help you decide on implants or lipoinjection (fat transfer), read on.

A breast enhanced (boob job) with fat is completely fluid, and the enhancement is virtually undetectable.  Dr. Cappiello can increase your cup size as many times as you'd like. "She can come back 6 months later and said, 'Now I want to be a D.' So, this is the beauty of the procedure - you can do this. With an implant you'd have to go in there and you'd have to remove the old implant which is no easy feat."

Disadvantages of Implants

Breast implants can be felt and sometimes seen beneath the skin. Saline implants will eventually flatten and need to be replaced.

The F.D.A. recommends surgery for silicone because that's often the only way to tell if an implant has a rupture. Bigger breasts with Implants are not designed to last 20 years and requires more breast surgery as you can see in the video clip:

So breast implant surgery may not be a one-time-only procedure, and should not be considered a once-in-a-lifetime event.

There are many reasons why women decide to undergo elective breast re-operation:

• Size — Despite the best pre-operative consultation of surgeons, patients often end up unhappy with their size of their breasts.
• Rupture/Deflation — The FDA (which relies on information from implant manufacturers) reports a one- to seven-percent occurrence in all cases of saline breast implants.
• Age — Breast implants don't last forever. For any of several reasons including rupture, change in feel, asymmetry, etc., a patient can expect to replace the implants once or twice in her lifetime.
• Capsular Contraction — Surgery is required to free the breast implant from scar tissue.
• Mal-positioned/Asymmetrical Breast Implants — Sometimes caused by various physical activities performed by the patient, malposition or asymmetry requires repositioning of the shifted implant. It also can be required due to improper initial placement.
• Change in Feel or Sensation — This can occur and may be improved by using smooth breast implants (versus textured), which wrinkle less and give implants a more natural feel.

Health insurance does not cover the initial or any follow-up surgeries. Yet complications do occur, and revision surgeries are sometimes necessary to correct a problem. Again, both saline and silicone breast implants usually have to be replaced at some point because of breakage. About 1% to 2% of breast implants break or deflate each year, and the majority will likely need to be replaced eventually. Nothing lasts forever.

Another factor to consider: a woman’s breasts naturally change over time, while the breast implant stays the same. Breast implants that looked good at age 22 may no longer look good on the same woman after she has had children, breastfed, or grown older. Postpartum women – after giving birth - won't have so many breast changes, especially if they have kept their weight under control.

Advantages of Fat Injection

Many women have an ample fat supply to achieve the volume of enhancement she desires using lipoinjection. Recovery following lipoinjection is shorter and easier than after an implant surgery. These two factors allow surgeons to do lipoinjections multiple times over any period of time to achieve and maintain the desired aesthetic size and shape.

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