Short YouTube #shorts transcript (Nov 6, 2025) of Robert Whitfield MD discussing saline vs. silicone breast implants. Key points: the implant shell is the same regardless of filler (saline is salt water; silicone implants have silicone filler), filler type is less important than shell failure, and a ruptured implant (even if intracapsular/contained) is considered a failed device that should be removed rather than left in place.
But so people that have saline say, oh, I'm not a candidate for explant because I'm not sick because they're saline.
What are you saying to do with that?
Okay, tell us why.
So each implant has the same shell on the outside. It's the filler. This is water. The saline implant as salt water in it. This is a silicone implant. So it just has a silicone filler. So the shell is still the same, the outside, yeah. So it doesn't really. The filler is inconsequential. I have just as many people with saline as I do silicone. It doesn't matter.
No. And the woman that has leaking silicone or hers are totally ruptured. That is spoken to me recently and hasn't taken them out. Need to get those bags out of her body.
Yeah. There was this odd or I found it odd when people would say, if it's a. So there's intracapsular rupture and there's extra capsular rupture. So the scar tissue around the implant, if it's ruptured and it's contained, that's intracapsular. Now if it's outside like this, it's extra capsular. So they would, you know, guidance to me was like, if this is ruptured, it's a device that's failed. Take it out. There have been people reporting leaving intracapsular or contained ruptures, you know, in. In the patient. To me, that's, you know, I'm not aligned with that. Because that doesn't make sense.
Exactly.
If you had a break of knee prosthesis, you wouldn't leave it in.
Exactly.
Or if you had a dental implant that had failed and you wouldn't leave it in.
