Silicone prosthesis has good physical and chemical stability and physical inertia. After long-term storage in the body, it has the characteristics of resistance to tissue fluid corrosion, not being absorbed and degraded by metabolism, and also has good plasticity, hydrophobicity and heat resistance. Silicone prosthesis is easy to shape, and once complications occur, it is easy to take out completely; Implanted silica gel is not absorbed by tissues, and it is elastic, moderate in hardness, not easy to bend and deform, low in price and widely used in clinic.

Here I need to emphasize once again that medical silica gel has been used in clinic for decades, and it is widely used. The safety (non-toxic) of silica gel has long been proved.

However, silicone prosthesis also has its shortcomings, such as light transmission, easy sliding and relatively hard texture. Clinically, the prosthesis often floats, shakes, falls off, skews, and may even rupture the skin and expose it, as well as complications such as contracture of the prosthesis capsule, infection and prominent nasal tip contour. The main disadvantages of silicone prosthesis are that it is easy to slide, deform and twist in the later stage, and the damaged parts of skin are easy to wear and tear, which is difficult to overcome.

Due to gravity and skin tension, the use of silicone prosthesis at the tip of the nose may lead to skin rupture at the tip of the nose. In order to avoid this shortcoming of L-shaped silicone prosthesis, prosthesis manufacturers have adopted increasingly soft materials (especially the tip of nose), which are now popular one-stage, two-stage and three-stage silicone prostheses. If you have the opportunity to contact this prosthesis, you can feel that the materials of the back of the nose and the tip of the nose are different. But is this improvement really effective? Through simple logical reasoning, it can be seen that if the effect is really good, plastic surgeons now will not generally advocate not taking a vacation at the nose.

Based on the above, in recent years, the size and length of silicone nose prosthesis used in bed are getting smaller and smaller. If the tip of the nose needs plastic surgery at the same time, doctors often use autologous cartilage transplantation to carry out nasal tip plastic surgery alone. Therefore, plastic surgeons usually trim the "L" prosthesis into an "I" prosthesis, which means that the softer and more expensive materials at the tip of the nose will actually be discarded. Personally, I think that using only "I" prosthesis to pad the bridge of the nose may not be as natural as swelling, but the effect can still satisfy most plastic surgeons and beauty seekers.

Second, the batch selection and trade-off

Expanded PTFE (hereinafter referred to as "Expanded PTFE") is an inert expanded polymer, which is composed of many PTFE nodules, with fine fibers interwoven in various directions and ultra-micro porous structure. These micropores allow tissue to grow, braking it and being accepted by the body's immune system.

The advantage of swelling is that its texture is close to human nasal tissue, its histocompatibility is good, and its postoperative effect is generally more natural than that of silica gel. Its microporous structure allows microvessels to grow in, which is not easy to slide and has good stability; The swelling material has good biocompatibility, small rejection reaction, light opacity, light weight, no obvious feeling of falling, and no compression and atrophy on bone tissue.

However, the disadvantage of swelling is also obvious, because it is not soft enough to provide structural support, such as raising the tip of the nose and columella. And once there is a problem, it is very difficult to take out the silicone prosthesis, but this difficulty is aimed at doctors with poor anatomical skills. For professional doctors, it is at most a small trouble, not a challenge. At the same time, the carving and implantation technology of expansion body is more complicated than silicone prosthesis, which requires doctors' anatomical knowledge and experience, which is beyond the reach of ordinary doctors. In addition, compared with prostheses, expandable materials are much more expensive.

The main disadvantage of rhinoplasty is that it is easy to be infected. Expanded microporous virus can enter, but human immune cells can't, so once infected, only one can be taken out. According to my personal experience, early infection after rhinoplasty can be effectively controlled if the operation process is strictly aseptic and the pollution of rhinoplasty materials is strictly prevented. Long-term postoperative infection is generally related to patients' bad habits, such as picking their noses and squeezing acne, so it is very important for patients with rhinoplasty to strictly follow the doctor's advice and maintain the health and hygiene of their noses. According to literature reports and my experience, the infection rate of swelling is about 3%, which is a problem that you must weigh when choosing swelling.

Third, summary.

Whether it is beauty seekers or doctors, there are many disputes about the advantages and disadvantages of silicone prosthesis and breast augmentation. My opinion is that both silicone prosthesis and breast augmentation have definite advantages and obvious disadvantages. How to choose should be based on the patient's organizational basis. It needs to be understood that while enjoying the advantages of a material, it should also accommodate its shortcomings.

For total rhinoplasty, no matter whether you choose silicone prosthesis or rhinoplasty, the last thing you put on your nose is an I-shaped object, and the essence of total rhinoplasty lies in the doctor's remodeling of nose and tip, so you don't have to worry too much about which material to choose. Finally, a formal plastic surgery institution, a professional plastic surgeon and legal plastic materials are the three elements to ensure the safety of your surgery, and they are all indispensable. Instead of spending a lot of energy and time on prosthesis materials, it is better to do your homework and choose reliable hospitals and doctors.