Why do Motiva breast implants allow for much smaller incisions? [Dan Zegzula, MD, Portland]

Eva Sheie (00:00):
You're listening to Where Before Meets After. One thing I've been hearing a lot is that you're able to make smaller incisions with Motiva and incisions are a big concern for patients, especially breast aug patients. If you've never had them before, even if you're having a revision, the incision is always, it's kind of front and center until it heals, right?

Dr. Zegzula (00:21):
That's right. Patients worry about their incisions, they worry about the incision location, how long the incision is going to be and what's that scar going to look like. So if you can make a smaller incision, then that's always a good thing and it makes patients feel more comfortable that they're having a smaller incision and less scar burden and healing faster.

Eva Sheie (00:40):
So how do those Motiva implants enable you to make smaller incisions than maybe you were able to in the past?

Dr. Zegzula (00:47):
Yeah, and the makers of Motiva really do encourage surgeons to use smaller incisions, all made possible by the way the implant is made, the way it's been designed. Motiva talks about their implants having a monoblock construction, and that is, although it comes in two pieces, that is the shell and what fills the shell, that is the silicone gel on the inside, the implant acts like it's one piece. The shell doesn't want to come away from the gel, and the gel itself has a very high viscoelasticity to it. So the implant can tolerate being compressed much more than a normal breast implant. By compressed, I mean, if you're going to put an implant through a small incision, you have to be able to squeeze that implant down enough to fit it into that incision through that incision in the skin. And the fear was in other breast implants is that they would fracture that is the gel itself would fracture, or perhaps the gel would separate from the shell. That's called delamination, and that's not a good thing for the implant. And that will lead to implant failure in a very rapid way. These Motiva implants and their monoblock construction and their high visco elasticity with the gel that's inside does allow them to be conformed in a way that they can be squeezed through small incisions and they tolerate that very well, and there's no risk of failure. And with a smaller incision, you have a faster recovery and much smaller scar. So they really are a leader in that area.

Eva Sheie (02:18):
Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Eva Sheie. Follow the show and submit questions for our experts at wherebeforemeetsafter.com. Where Before Meets After is a production of The Axis.