What is the reason that in over 40 years of use, there have been no reports of bacteria passing into an intact saline implant inside a person: bacteria are too large to pass through the implant's sub-microscopic pores by osmosis.
To get inside an implant, therefore, bacteria would have to be introduced during the operation. That could only happen if sterile precautions and techniques had failed - an extreme rarity in modern surgery, when such surgery is performed by a surgeon certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, and done in an operating room fully certified and accredited. In addition, because the salt water is actually sterile intravenous saline, it contains no nutrients that bacteria could live on. Under laboratory condition, at least one researcher has succeeded in getting survival of bacteria intentionally put into saline breast implants, but with difficulty. Moreover, through osmosis, the implant water is constantly being refreshed.
There is one technique that can make contamination of the implant contents even less likely. That is, using a closed system to make sure the salt-water never comes into contact with room air. An entirely closed, sealed system is used to transfer the sterile salt water from its original container directly into the implant, without exposure to the air. This is the technique I have used for many years, and is becoming a standard. The issue of bacteria inside the implant turns out to be a non-problem.
Having said all that about bacteria inside an implant, there is however a theory that the presence of normally harmless bacteria on the outer surface of implanted devices (breast implants, pacemakers, hip joints, heart valves, penile implants, testicular implants etc) might make susceptible individuals feel unwell, with flu-like or other symptoms. These bacteria reside in breast ducts, and in fact in all of our skin pores, and are most often Staph epidermidis. This has been written about and discussed at meetings by me since the early 90's, and I inform all patients about that theoretical possibility, which is included in my written consent forms for any type of implant surgery.
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