Breast Augmentation has come a long way - some of the first implants were not really implants at all, but injections of paraffin or non-medical grade silicone. According to www.PBS.org, the first woman to receive silicone implants was Timmie Jean Lindsey in 1962. However, because the FDA didn't enact their Medical Devices Amendment until 1976, silicone breast implant devices were grandfathered in and remained unchecked until several cases came to light of silicone breast implants rupturing and causing dangerous health risks to the women who had them.
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Throughout the 80s and 90s, silicone breast implant manufacturers were fraught with lawsuit after lawsuit from previous breast implant patients and many women decided against silicone breast implants, opting instead for saline breast implants. The rise in popularity of saline breast implants was largely due to the fact that the filler was saline, essentially salt water, and if ruptured would not cause the same damage as silicone would. However, now that the FDA has approved the use of silicone gel breast implants again, it is reported that saline is falling out of favor.
New technology such as the Keller Funnel has increased the safety of silicone breast implants by reducing the risk of infection and capsular contraction.
Today, the newest technology to come to enhance breasts uses the patient's own fat. The Natural Breast Augmentation uses fat that has been removed from an undesired location via liposuction and then in a fat transfer procedure, the fat is grafted to the breast area. This procedure was also not without complications and controversy when first used. Initially, autologous fat grafting was largely unsuccessful in the 1980s as predictability and fat retention was extremely unpredictable.
However, as technology improved, the removal of pure fat through procedures such as the {!Body-Jet}, which uses water to gently remove intact fat cells has increased the survival rate of transferred fat cells to the breast area. Companies like Cytori have created systems that purify fat called the PureGraft, which strive to deliver purer fat, in hopes of greater fat transfer survival rate.
As for the future, breast augmentation is still looking at natural breast augmentation but with hopes of adding stem and regenerative cells extracted from fat. While all fat that is being transferred contain these stem and regenerative cells, the idea is that super-charged fat (with extra stem and regenerative cells) will again, increase the survival rate and potentially increase volume transfer. Currently, a natural breast augmentation could only increase the breast size by approximately a cup.
