So because the breast implant is plastic and it’s recognised as a foreign body by the patient, the body makes a scar capsule around the implant, and that’s a natural way that the body identifies it as separate from itself and it controls the position of the implant very nicely. But in a small group of patients that scar capsule tightens and it shrinks, and when it shrinks it makes the implant go hard and that can distort the shape of the breast. It can be painful, and it can be very uncomfortable to live with. It’s not very common and the modern implants have got strategies within them to minimise that happening, but it still happens in probably five to ten percent of patients, of which maybe a tenth of those will actually need surgery to deal with it. And sometimes that involves taking the implant and the capsule out and putting a new implant in.
