Is it possible for silicone gel to move outside of the implant pocket?

Once breast implants are placed into their pocket, the body’s natural reaction is to form a scar capsule around the implant.  This is an attempt of the immune system to ‘wall off’ what it sees as a foreign body.  This scar capsule encloses the implant and keeps the overwhelming majority of any leaked silicone gel inside of the pocket.

The first two generations of breast implants contained silicone gel which was a very thin substance in an effort to make it feel as much as possible like natural breast tissue.  The silicone shell which made up the implant surface was also very thin and allowed leakage of silicone gel outside of the implant even when the shell remained intact.  This was known as silicone bleed.  Although the majority of this silicone would remain contained within the scar capsule, a very small percentage of silicone would escape the capsule and migrate into lymph nodes under the arms.  From there, it is possible for microscopic amounts of silicone to enter the circulatory system and get into other parts of the body such as the liver.

As silicone is one of the most common elements on the face of the earth, it is not uncommon for silicone to be found in very small amounts in the body even in individuals who do not have silicone implants.  At this time, there is no known negative consequence of small quantities of silicone in the body which is one of the reasons that the FDA reapproved the use of silicone gel breast implants for the general population for breast augmentation.

Current generation silicone gel breast implants have a much thicker gel as well as a much thicker shell than older implants.  As a result, there is dramatically less silicone gel bleed outside of the shell and a much lower risk of silicone getting outside of the implant pocket.

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