Doo da doo doo, do da doo doo (Please sing with twillight zone theme)
This month’s October 2011 issue of PRS (our plastic surgery journal) looked at a new kind of tissue expander breast implant to use for breast reconstruction. A new system “AirXpander system” out of Palo Alto provides “controlled, gradual and comfort guided tissue expansion in breast reconstruction.” This would eliminate the need to do the expander fillings like we have traditionally done (every 2-3 weeks you come into the office for an almost pain free injection of saline into your breast tissue expander.)
The article is titled “Patient Activated Controlled Expansion for Breast Reconstruction with Controlled Carbon Dioxide Inflation: A Feasibility Study.” Please note key words in the title: FEASIBLITY STUDY. This is not out yet in your local hospitals.
Benefits of this? Smaller, more frequent expansions. You don’t need to go through the skin, so likely a lower risk of infection and capsular contracture/biofilm. The system involves a dosage controller which is outside of the body. It wirelessly tells the implant to administer carbon dioxide into the expander. This can be controlled by the doctor and by the patient. There is a lockout period, and other things.
Findings? Time to full expansion was a mean of 15 days. It was 1/3 of the usual time needed to do expansion normally.
So can you get this yet? No. There were issues: if you leave the expanders in, you need to redose the carbon dioxide. If you need to remove any of the carbon dioxide, you disable the device and would have to remove it. Also there is a change in altitude restriction, causing discomfort, so the patients were not allowed to do air travel.
But it is interesting. Oh brave new world. Who would have thought we may have wireless devices with internal tracking to help us inflate our breast tissue expanders?