[Breast Surgery Korea KIES-U]

Breast augmentation is the most popular beauty surgery in the world today.
In 2010, there were 318,000 cases of breast augmentation in US alone.



Image that shows the possibility of capsular contracture according to different incision areas. Reference: 2012 Aesthetic surgery journal vol. 32, Doctor Jacobson


The most concerning side effect after the breast augmentation is the capsular contracture. There is no confirmed reason as to why this capsular contracture is caused or formed but there are many doctors who perceive that the exterior pollutant that penetrates into the body is the cause.




Prof. Jeffrey M Jacobson, Prof. Scott Spear and others from Georgetown University in D.C. has studied results from experimenting 197 samples from 2003 to 2009.
Prof. Jacobson and his team built a hypothesis that staphylococcus on the human skin leads to high possibility of capsular contracture.

They perceived that the staphylococcus that lives in sweating parts of the body such as the armpit touches the implant as it is put into the breast leading to higher possibility of the capsular contracture. They also believed that staphylococcus infected the implant in the same way when the incision is done on the areola.

After many comparisons and analysis, the incidence rate of capsular contracture due to armpit incision was found to be the highest at 6.4%, followed by breast aureole at 2.4% and inframammary fold at 0.5%.



This result was found to be statistically significant by Prof. Jacobson’s team.

The finding was that the possibility of capsular contracture by armpit incision is 13 times more likely than the inframammary fold incision. 

Capsular contracture is not as simple as to be only explained by germs polluting the implant. How the patient desquamates the implant pocket, how severe is the bleeding, is the implant textured, etc are all variables that may lead to capsular contracture.

However, I think that this finding, inframammary fold incision leading to least possibility of capsular contracture, is a meaningful one.

Toda, we looked at the findings by Georgetown University research team regarding the different incision parts and the incidence rate of the capsular contracture.

Have a great weekend. Thank you.