Modern and Safe A Closer Look at Today's Silicone Breast Implants

Carrie:
Have you considered getting breast augmentation but you have safety concerns? Renowned plastic surgeon Dr. George Toledo of Highland Park Plastic Surgery Center is here this morning to show and tell us about safety, and the natural look and feel of today's silicone breast implants. Good to see you.

Dr. Toledo:
Good to be here Carrie.

Carrie:
All right. I want to talk about the differences between those modern and then the older silicone implants. What do you think is the biggest difference?

Dr. Toledo:
Well, let me show you. I have a lot of patients that come to the office and they're saying, “Oh, I'm scared of silicone, and I'm really worried about it. What do you think?” And so this has been going on for many, many years. The silicone implant was invented in the '60s in Houston.

Carrie:
Whoa.

Dr. Toledo:
1962. And actually I trained there in the '80s under the guy that invented them, so I've heard the story a hundred times. But the implants of the '60s, they were actually better than the '70s and the '80s. The implants of the '70s and the '80s were these paper thin watery filled bags of silicone that would break. And so it would cause a lot of problems to the patients, hard breasts, painful breasts.

Dr. Toledo:
And so in 1992 the government shut it down said, “Okay, look. You've got to make a better implant.” So they took these things off the market and came up with a lot better implant. And so what happens with these, even if these implants didn't break you can see on my computer... see this film?

Carrie:
Yes.

Dr. Toledo:
It looks like WD-40. And so the molecules of silicone would leak through the shell and get throughout the body.

Carrie:
That's scary.

Dr. Toledo:
It is scary. But what's even scarier is what happens-

Carrie:
Oh, do I need to backup?

Dr. Toledo:
...these things are so fragile. This is actually kind of an antique. So when I go into surgery, and this is kind of what happens to the implants, they basically do this, and you have this gooey stuff-

Carrie:
That didn't take much effort on your part to break that open.

Dr. Toledo:
No, not at all. So you kind of have this big gooey stuff coming out. And this stuff kind of migrates to your axilla and then can actually cause a lot of local problems. But it's just kind of a big gooey mess.

Carrie:
That's a big gooey mess right there. You have a powerful demonstration to show.

Dr. Toledo:
Yes. I'd like to show you a video of what the new implants are like. I did a little home video.

Carrie:
Experiment of your own?

Dr. Toledo:
Yes.

Carrie:
All right. Let's take a look at that.

Dr. Toledo:
We're at the golf club. Testing the integrity of this implant. I've got some volunteers, Juan and his caddy buddies, and we're going to run over it with a golf cart. Put it here. Okay Jack, run over this thing. See it's fully intact. Actually it can take a lot more punishment than this.

Dr. Toledo:
Okay. Here we are with the implant underneath the back wheel of my car, and this is a lot heavier than the golf cart. Let's see what happens to the implant now. Perfectly intact.

Carrie:
You crack me up. You're like going around town trying to bust this thing open. You can't. Bust. No pun intended there.

Dr. Toledo:
I know. I know. I just went over to the golf club and I had a little fun. But this is that same implant, and it's very indestructible.

Carrie:
You ran over it with your car.

Dr. Toledo:
I just want to show the viewers if you have this old implant it really should be replaced. And let me show you evolution. This is 53 years worth of silicone evolution. This is today's implant cut in half with a razor blade, and you can see it's solid. Yeah. Well, it is-

Carrie:
It's a very powerful demonstration. We can tell the difference. Thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate it.

Dr. Toledo:
You're welcome.

Carrie:
All right. For all the information you can call Dr. George Toledo at Highland Park Plastic Surgery Center. That number is 214-363-4444. And you can also log onto his website. It's right there on the screen, toledoplasticsurgery.com.