DD breast implant oozed out 'like a blister'

Lauren ended up forking out $8000 for her implants. Picture: Thinkstock Source: Supplied

LAUREN Yardley had always dreamed of having a more curvaceous figure.

So at 25, and tired of her "boyish" shape, she decided to buy what Mother Nature had not given her.

She paid over $5,000 for a breast implant operation, increasing her A-cup size breasts to DD.

But to her horror, just two months after the surgery, her body started to reject one of the implants. Weeks later, it actually started protruding from her chest and came through the skin.

Now the nursery worker wants to warn women of the potential pitfalls of cosmetic surgery.

"I couldn't believe it when the implant started coming out of my breast," she recalled.

"At first it was like a blister, but then over the next week it started to come out more and more.

"I did not feel too much pain, just discomfort. The doctors at the hospital said they had never seen anything like it - they couldn't believe I was not in septic shock. I feel very lucky, it could have been a lot worse."

Miss Yardley, from Coventry, paid an initial sum of $5400 at a private clinic for breast implants in September 2009. Soon after the surgery, her right breast became hard and lumpy.

Doctors diagnosed capsular contracture, a common complication in implant surgery, in which the body forms a capsule of scar tissue around the implant. It is a natural process and usually settles. In Miss Yardley's case, however, the scar tissue tightened around the implant so much that it started squeezing it out of her body.

She paid another $1200 for surgeons to replace the implant.

But two months later she was rushed to A&E at Coventry University Hospital when the implant started protruding from her breast. After checks, she was transferred back to the Tonic Cosmetic Surgery in Nottingham where surgeons safely removed the rejected implant.

Then came the worst part of her ordeal. She had to wait seven months for her body to heal, with one breast totally flat and the other still DD before doctors could replace the implant again. She also had to pay another $1400.

"The most horrific thing was having only one breast for seven months," she said. "I was booked to go on holiday to Tenerife for two weeks so I had to pad out my bra so people would not notice. When I booked the operation they told me it was common for the body to reject implants - but I had no idea this could happen.

"People always ask me if I would have implants again after all I have been through but I always say yes. I don't regret it at all. But it has cost me a fortune to have all the follow up operations."

A spokesman for Tonic Cosmetic Surgery said: "Most women who have breast implants will experience some level of capsular contracture. Lauren's is probably one of the worst cases we have seen."

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Retina chip implant gives blind hope

This X-Ray shows how the implanted microchip device works to send electronic signals from the optic nerve to the brain. Source: Supplied

GERMAN-designed implants aimed at restoring vision to patients blinded by retinal disease have succeeded in the second phase of trials, researchers reported.

The device was tested for up to nine months among nine people with retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease in which light receptors on the back of the eyeball degenerate and eventually cease to function.

"Of the nine patients observed in the study, three patients were able to read letters spontaneously," Retina Implant AG, a nine-year-old technology startup company that invented the device, said in a press release.

"During observation in and outside the laboratory, patients also reported the ability to recognise faces, distinguish objects such as telephones and read signs on doors."

The study appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a journal published by Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.

This X-Ray shows how the implanted microchip device works to send electronic signals from the optic nerve to the brain.

The device consists of a tiny light-sensitive chip measuring 3mm by 3mm, which sends electrical signals down the optic nerve to the brain, providing a "diamond-shaped" black-and-white image with a field of 15 degrees.

Attached to the retina, the implant is powered via a thin cable which connects to a small coil fitted under a fold of skin behind the ear.

The coil is charged when a handheld battery unit is brought up close to it - the same principle of wireless charging that is used, for instance, in electrical toothbrushes - and thus means it can be used outdoors.

The battery unit also has two knobs, enabling the user to adjust the brightness and contrast of the image.

This diagram shows where the microchip is implanted.

The patients received the implant in one eye, the one with the worst visual function.

One of the nine had to drop out of the experiment after the optic nerve was damaged during the implant operation, and another experienced a buildup in eyeball pressure which was successfully treated with drugs.

New drugs and revolutionary medical devices typically undergo a three-phase process of trials on human volunteers.

The number of patients and the scope of the test gradually widens, in a bid to ensure that the innovation is both safe and effective.

The first trial of the implant, published in 2010, used a cable, rather than wireless technology, to power the device.

There are several other entrants in the field for retinal implants, reflecting big advances in electronic miniaturisation and microsurgery in the past decade.

None claims to be a cure but rather an aid to distinguish between light and darkness and ascertain the shape of objects.

"Although the restoration of vision described here is limited, blind persons with no alternative therapy options regard this type of artificial vision as an improvement in everyday life," the German doctors said.

Last week the US firm Second Sight Medical Products gained US regulatory approval in addition to the green light from Europe for its Argus II retinal prosthesis.

There is also a 24-electrode device made by Bionic Vision Australia, which has so far been tested on one patient.

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