Beauty Doc Blog

Women often see their physical appearance as a barrier to their happiness. Cosmetic surgery offers a variety of procedures to get the body you want, in order to help you look your best and boost your self-esteem. And breast augmentations, being the number one surgery in the nation, are often the surgeries of choice for many young and older women looking to improve their aesthetic appearance.

Because breast implants are a major surgery, there are some risks. Even if you have gone through the checklist of ensuring your health is adequate, your doctor is qualified and you are doing this for the right reasons, there is a small chance that the surgery will encounter some complications.

Breast encapsulation is a condition where one or both of the breasts become hard and misshapen. It is a result of a capsule forming around the breast implant and hardening, forcing the implant upwards and squeezing it with pressure. A capsule forming around a foreign object in the body is normal (such as a hip replacement), but the excessive scar tissue that builds around an encapsulated breast implant is not.

Breast encapsulation or capsular contracture can occur after a breast augmentation. It often occurs after an infection or other medical issue, but it can also occur without any warning signs at all. There is still debate about why it occurs, and what causes it.

A scale is used to grade the severity of capsular contracture. Going from Grade I to Grade IV, it uses the softness/hardness and appearance of the breast as indicator of how severe the encapsulation is. For Grade III (the breast is firm and looks abnormal) and Grade IV (the breast is hard, painful, and looks abnormal) encapsulation, most women must go in for surgery to fix the problem.

Breast encapsulation is more common with silicon-gel filled breast implants. According to the FDA, “The IOM report26 stated that, for studies involving both silicone gel-filled and saline-filled breast implants, the capsular contracture rates were 36-81% for silicone-gel filled breast implants and 8-41% for saline-filled breast implants” (You can read the entire report here).

Safety should always be a concern when undergoing any major surgery. Talk to your doctor about breast encapsulation, how to avoid it, and what to do if you experience it. Arm yourself with knowledge about breast augmentation surgery before you undergo the procedure, and you will feel fully confident when you are out of the operating room.