Dr. Robert Whitfield compares saline and silicone breast implants. Saline implants deflate visibly when they rupture, but silicone gel implants can rupture silently and need imaging to detect. Both trigger scar tissue formation and carry equal risk of bacterial contamination during surgery.
If you picked saline over silicone breast implants, here's what you need to know. Saline is filled with saltwater. If it ruptures, you'll know it. It deflates and you can see it in the mirror. Silicone is filled with a gel. If that one ruptures, it can sit in there quietly for years and look completely normal from the outside. That's the whole reason imaging matters much more with silicone. So on rupture, saline genuinely does have an advantage, which is that you find out. Both are a device your immune system responds to. Body builds a layer of scar tissue around anything it can't break down, and that happens with both. And both can pick up bacteria on the way in during the surgery itself. That part has nothing to do with what's inside them.
