Breast Implant.

A breast implant is a prosthesis used to alter the size and shape of a woman's breasts (known as breast augmentation, breast enlargement, mammoplasty enlargement, augmentation mammoplasty or the common slang term boob job) for cosmetic reasons, to reconstruct the breast (e.g. after a mastectomy or to correct congenital chest wall deformities), or as an aspect of male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. Pectoral implants are a related device used in cosmetic and reconstructive procedures of the male chest wall. A breast tissue expander is a temporary breast implant used during staged breast reconstruction procedures. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, breast augmentation is the most commonly performed cosmetic surgical procedure in the United States. According to data collected by the American Society of Plastic Surgery, in 2007, 307,230 breast augmentation procedures were performed in the U.S., a 12% decrease compared to the previous year. This decrease has been associated with the financial challenges posed by a struggling economy. Despite the decrease, however, breast augmentation surgeries remained as the number one surgical cosmetic procedure performed in the U.S.

There are two primary types of breast implants: saline-filled and silicone-gel-filled implants. Saline implants have a silicone elastomer shell filled with sterile saline liquid. Silicone gel implants have a silicone shell filled with a viscous silicone gel. Several alternative types of breast implants had been developed, such as polypropylene string or soy oil, but these are no longer manufactured.

Indications
Breast implants are used primarily for:

• Primary reconstruction (to replace breast tissue that has been removed due to cancer or trauma or that has failed to develop properly due to a severe breast abnormality such as the tuberous breast deformity).
• Revision-reconstruction (revision surgery to correct or improve the result of an original breast reconstruction surgery).
• Primary augmentation (to increase breast size for cosmetic reasons).
• Revision-augmentation (revision surgery to correct or improve the result of an original breast augmentation surgery).

Source: Wikipedia.org