Cosmetic Surgery a Graduation Gift for Some High School Students

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Alex

It’s high school graduation season again, and while many parents might buy their beaming graduates jewelry or an expensive watch, it seems that plastic surgery is becoming a popular alternative to traditional graduation gifts.

The number of cosmetic procedures for American teenagers rose sharply around the turn of the millennium, from roughly 60,000 procedures performed in 1997 to 225,000 in 2003. Last year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, nearly 219,000 cosmetic plastic surgery procedures were performed on people aged 13-19. It’s likely that similar trends have emerged here in Canada.

While many parents struggle with the idea of giving their children plastic surgery as a graduation gift, many will find reasonable options upon doing a little research. Here are some of the procedures that have proven popular among this age group:

Many teenage girls will seek liposuction or breast augmentation, but responsible plastic surgeons will always carefully consider whether these procedures are medically appropriate for individual patients. This is especially challenging with teenage girls, who may one day wish to have children and might not fully anticipate the changes that their bodies will undergo.

Sometimes it’s better to wait. Plastic surgeon Dr. John Nguyen says he usually advises younger clients to “spend a year in college or work” because “it gives you that additional year of maturity and it gives you an idea of who you are and it gives you just a bit more time to decide what it is that you want to enhance that would make you happier.”

Parents who may wish to pay for their teens’ cosmetic procedures should be sure that they know where to draw the line. Laser treatments have become very popular because many mothers and fathers realize that these are safe and effective ways of removing hair or resurfacing the skin. Other procedures, such as rhinoplasty, should only be pursued if there are medical indications in their favour.

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Plastic Surgeons Double Breast Size with Body Fat

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Alex

One of the commonly cited drawbacks of breast augmentation through fat grafting is that the procedure usually can’t increase a patient’s breast size beyond one cup size. However, thanks to a new technique that involves pre-surgical breast expansion, autologous fat grafting can reportedly double your breast size without the need for foreign implants.

A study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery revealed this new procedure, in which a bra-like vacuum device gently applies negative pressure on the breast. The device stretches the breast tissue during the several weeks preceding surgery.

When the patient goes into the operation, her breast has been slightly expanded, meaning there is more room in the breast for the transfer of fat. During the operation, the plastic surgeon extracts some fat from another part of the body (typically the thigh) and grafts it onto the breast tissue.

Drs. Daniel Alexander Del Vecchio and Louis Paul Bucky, who authored the study, concluded that pre-surgical breast expansion was able to solve the longstanding volume limitations of conventional fat grafts. “Pre-expansion to the breast allows for mega-volume (over 300 cc) grafting with reproducible, long lasting results that can be achieved in less than two hours,” they wrote.

Study Highlights

After six months, the results of the surgery were examined. The doctors found significant improvements in size, as well as a soft and natural appearance and feel. There were no cysts, masses, or other abnormalities found under magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). No significant complications were reported.

Although more research into the long-term implications and safety issues is necessary, it seems clear that autologous fat grafting will continue to be an attractive alternative to traditional methods of breast augmentation.

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Selecting Your Breast Implants: Saline or Silicone?

Posted on June 9, 2011 by copywriter

Choosing to undergo elective surgery is a big decision for all Toronto breast augmentation patients, and many are surprised to find how many decisions await them even after they’ve decided to undergo the procedure.

Quite often, choosing an implant is difficult, as there are only subjective goals and preferences, and no medical requirements, to determine their choice.

Dr. Kara will guide you as much as possible during the breast implant selection process, using your anatomy and description of the optimal outcome to help you choose the right breast implants. In addition, knowing how saline implants and silicone implants compare will also help you make your decision.

How do the breast implants look and feel?

how to choose a breast implant in torontoBoth silicone and saline implants can give you a natural look, particularly if the implants are placed under the chest muscles, however silicone breast implants have a reputation for providing a more natural feel. This makes sense, given that silicone implants today are made of a cohesive gel material that more closely mimics the weight and suppleness of natural breast tissue than liquid saline solution.

Patients who are very thin or have little natural breast tissue to cover their implants are often good candidates for silicone gel implants because the implants are softer and less prone to rippling, allowing for a more natural look and feel.

Patients with pronounced asymmetry in the size of their natural breasts may also be good candidates for saline implants, as the volume of saline solution in each implant can be adjusted to even out the breasts.

Will there be scarring after breast augmentation?

Saline breast implants are composed of an outer silicone shell and a filling of liquid saline solution. Because the saline solution can be added after the implant shells have been placed in the chest wall, the incisions needed to place saline implants are smaller.

There are also more options as to where incisions can be placed with saline implants. Unlike silicone implants, which can be inserted only through incisions in each breast fold (inframammary incisions) or along each armpit (transaxillary incisions), saline implants can also be inserted through incisions around the border of each areola (periareolar incisions) and even through the belly button (TUBA incision).

Thus, saline implants result in smaller scars (about half an inch smaller) than silicone implants and offer more options for patients in terms of where their breast augmentation scars are located.

How much do breast implants cost?

Breast implant manufacturers charge about $1,000 more for silicone breast implants than saline breast implants, so breast augmentation with silicone implants is always more expensive initially.

Also, consider that patients with silicone implants should have an MRI three years after surgery and every two years thereafter, as there is no other way to detect breast cancer or implant ruptures with silicone implants. Saline implants, on the other hand, will visibly deflate if they are ruptured and can still allow mammograms to detect cancer.

Due to the cost of MRIs, maintaining silicone implants is more expensive in the long term as well.

It is easy to get overwhelmed evaluating the pros and cons of each breast implant material, but before you do, remember that you have a guiding light in this process: your plastic surgeon. Dr. Kara has several years of experience and has helped hundreds of Toronto breast enhancement patients choose the best implants for them.

Trust Dr. Kara to help you make this important decision, and feel free to ask questions, talk to other breast augmentation patients and look at plenty of before and after photos before you decide on silicone or saline breast implants.

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Breast Cancer Survival Rates Unaffected by Implants, Says Preliminary Study

Posted on May 24, 2011 by copywriter

implants-dont-affect-breast-cancer-survivalWomen with breast implants are not less likely to survive breast cancer as non-augmented women, according to a study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons’ annual meeting in Washington D.C.

The study, which is preliminary and has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, found that while implants can often interfere with mammograms, this did not contribute to a lower rate of survival. Instead, it points to the importance of regular MRI and ultrasound screening for breast implant patients.

With over 318,000 procedures performed in 2010, breast implants are one of the most popular cosmetic surgeries in the United States. With breast cancer affecting one out of every eight women, says Dr. Ramona Bates from eMax Health, this means that “more than 35,000 of the women who had breast augmentation in the year 2010 can be expected to develop breast cancer.”

If you consider that these numbers reflect only last year’s numbers, it’s clear that this issue actually has serious implications for hundreds of thousands of women.

Many experts believe that breast implants affect a patient’s chances for breast cancer survival because the implants interfere with early diagnosis. The scarring caused by the surgery, they say, is likely to obscure the signs of the disease, and later discovery will typically mean a poorer outcome. The authors of the study, Dr. Jessica Rayhanabad and her colleagues, realized that they could use an existing database of breast cancer patients to compare survival rates. If the prevailing theory were true, then augmented patients would have lower survival rates, because of later diagnosis.

The study analyzed 5,005 patient profiles, 195 of which had breast implants. It found that there was no substantial difference between the two groups, with rates of ten-year survival being 83% for augmented patients and 82% for non-augmented patients. Augmented patients were more likely to have cancers that were palpable, but there was no difference among rates of distant recurrence, tumor size, nuclear grade, or survival.

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