Breast Implant Revision (Removal or Replacement)

Not always. Removing the implant alone means less dissection and less risk, and capsulectomy is generally reserved for thick, contracted, calcified or infected capsules, ruptured silicone implants, and confirmed BIA-ALCL. A prospective study found systemic symptom improvement was similar whether an intact total, total or partial capsulectomy was performed.

Not usually. Removing the implant and capsule together may be appropriate in selected situations, particularly confirmed BIA-ALCL. It is more complex surgery near the chest wall, so we recommend it only where there is a clear reason and it can be performed safely.

They may. The breast will have less volume, and skin that has stretched around an implant may not fully contract. Your result depends on your skin quality, implant size, breast tissue and scar capsule. A lift, with or without fat grafting, may improve shape but also adds scars and recovery.

Some people report improvement after implant removal, while others do not. There is no single diagnostic test for breast implant illness, and surgery cannot promise symptom resolution. We take your symptoms seriously, review other possible causes and discuss the limits of current evidence before you decide.

Implants are not lifetime devices, and ASPS notes they commonly need exchange or removal somewhere in the range of 10 to 15 years — but there is no expiry date, and an intact, comfortable implant does not have to come out on a schedule. ASPS advises MRI or ultrasound screening from 5 to 6 years after silicone implant placement, then every 2 to 3 years, to catch silent rupture.

Removal or replacement is priced according to the operation required. Our Istanbul packages for implant removal are generally €2350–€7,500. A lift, fat grafting, replacement implants and laboratory analysis may change the cost. We confirm what is included in writing before you travel.

It depends on the indication. Purely cosmetic explantation is generally self-funded, while removal for medical reasons — rupture, severe capsular contracture, recurrent infection, BIA-ALCL — is more often funded. NHS commissioning policies fund removal on clinical grounds and generally do not replace privately placed cosmetic implants.

En bloc — implant and capsule out as one unopened unit — is the mainstay of treatment for BIA-ALCL and is used when silicone has escaped the capsule. Outside those indications there is no evidence it gives better symptom or aesthetic results than total or partial capsulectomy, and it involves more dissection near the chest wall.

Often, yes. The skin has been stretched around the implant, so afterwards the breast is smaller and may look flatter, droopier, or slightly irregular or indented depending on the scar tissue. Many patients choose a lift at the same time or later, sometimes with fat grafting, to improve the shape.

Many patients report improvement, but there is no diagnostic test for breast implant illness and we cannot promise an outcome. In a series of 248 patients having removal with capsulectomy, 90.4% of those surveyed reported high satisfaction, and prospective work found at least partial symptom improvement in most patients, with roughly a two-thirds reduction in symptom scores by 6 months.

The ASPS average surgeon fee in the US is $3,979, which excludes anaesthesia, operating theatre and facility fees, garments and tests — so the real US total sits materially higher. Our all-in price in Istanbul is €3,000–€5,500 depending on whether a capsulectomy is needed. A lift or fat grafting is a separate procedure and is priced on top.

Explant rarely has to happen urgently, and some situations mean it should wait. An active breast or skin infection is treated first. A late seroma, a breast mass or unexplained swelling is investigated for BIA-ALCL before elective surgery, because a confirmed diagnosis changes the operation to en bloc removal. Smoking and nicotine raise the risk of poor wound healing and skin loss, so nicotine stops well beforehand — especially if a lift is planned in the same operation. Blood thinners need a managed pause, and pregnancy or breastfeeding defers surgery until the breast has settled.

Contact us — or seek local care if you are already home — for spreading redness or warmth around an incision, discharge or a wound that opens, fever, or pain that worsens instead of easing. One breast suddenly swelling or bruising far more than the other can mean a hematoma or seroma that needs draining. Because chest surgery and flying both raise clot risk, calf pain or swelling, breathlessness or chest pain are emergencies: go straight to a hospital, not to a message thread.

Not necessarily. Removing an intact implant and leaving the capsule is genuinely quick. But a total or en bloc capsulectomy is more surgery than the original augmentation — the dissection runs close to the chest wall, theatre time is longer, and seroma is more common than after an implant exchange. That is why the capsule decision is made with you before the day, not improvised during it.

Where a capsulectomy is done, the tissue can be sent for histopathology, and any fluid is sent for cytology and CD30 testing — the way BIA-ALCL is diagnosed. It is rare, but a late seroma or a mass around an implant is the classic presentation, and it is the reason we investigate those before elective surgery rather than after. If a result comes back positive, complete surgical removal of the implant and the whole capsule is the treatment, and it cures most cases where the disease is confined to the capsule; you are referred to a lymphoma multidisciplinary team for staging either way. Ask whether histopathology sits inside your quoted price or is itemised.

Yes — age-appropriate screening continues exactly as it would for anyone else, and it gets easier without implants, because the extra displacement views needed to see around a device are no longer required. Tell the imaging unit you have had implants removed. Residual capsule, calcification and small silicone deposits can show up on a mammogram, and a radiologist who knows the history reads them correctly instead of recalling you for something that is not a cancer.

Between €2,350 and €7,500 with us — a wide range because removal alone, removal with a lift, and removal with replacement are three different operations, and capsule work adds to it. The same surgery is typically £4,000–£8,000 in the UK, $5,000–$10,000 in the United States and €4,000–€8,000 in Western Europe. The figure is confirmed only after your imaging and implant history have been reviewed.

Yes, with the same caveats as any revision. Ask whether the surgeon will send anything removed for pathology and give you the result, ask what they will do if a capsule is thicker than the scan suggested, and ask whether that changes the price. Since April 2025 any facility here treating international patients must hold a health tourism authorisation certificate and carry complication insurance covering revision or transfer. Ask to see it, and ask for the surgeon who will actually operate by name.