A short clinician monologue (YouTube short by Robert Whitfield MD) arguing for complete capsulectomy when removing breast implants. The speaker cites evidence of ~29% bacterial contamination/infection, warns that leaving the capsule traps silicone/biomaterial (especially after rupture) and can sustain T‑cell–mediated immune responses, and shares an anecdote of a ruptured silicone implant removed under local anesthesia.
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29%
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The reason I take the capsule out is last year we showed that 29% have bacterial contamination, 29% are infected. If you were just to unzip the old incision and pull the implant out and leave all the capsule in, that material would still be stuck to inside the body. Magical to me. So the signal doesn't go away. You just took out the device. So in that third, basically, you're leaving the same problem. So we've done complete capsulectomy. My entire experience with this, because that's what I would do for a cancer patient. Now, two, this has happened. And I recently where somebody told me from this city, Salt Lake, they had a implant removed under local that was ruptured silicon gel. Now, there is no way that all that biomaterial was ever actually completely RUP removed, because, you know, microscopically it can't be right because the capsule's still there. So that stuff's stuck in that capsule. So now, going back to our other discussion of now, your body's really clever. It has T cells that can recognize anything. Any particle represents an antigen. An antigen gets shown to your T cells that causes a response. The longer those things stay there, the more you get the reaction. Like we discussed.
