A study published recently in the Canadian Journal of Plastic Surgery that examined physical characteristics and implant details of women in three cities who underwent breast augmentation found a statistically significant positive correlation of BMI and implant volume for patients in two of the cities. The higher the patient’s BMI, the larger the implant volume used for patients in Loma Linda, California and Temple, Texas; the third location, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, also had this trend, but it was not statistically significant.
“Implications from this correlation found in our study include possibly improving implant volume predictions preoperatively, leading to improved efficiency, outcomes and reduced reoperation rates,” the authors wrote. They also said that the patients’ BMI could potentially provide an additional data point on which to make operative planning decisions.
The researchers looked at 100 breast augmentation cases in three cities in order to gather demographics of these patients, which they said was lacking from other research. Breast augmentation surgery has been on the increase in the past decade — according to statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, there has been a 45% increase in women seeking breast augmentation since 2000.
The study looked at 100 consecutive breast augmentation cases at each location; they were retrospectively reviewed, and data was gathered on height, weight, body mass index (BMI), age, the number of children the patient had and implant volume.
The three geographic group medians were significantly different for weight, BMI and implant volume. BMI was lowest in the Canadian city and highest in Temple, Tex. Temple patients had the smallest average implant size, significantly lower than the other two cities.
The study also looked at the data for all 300 patients as one group. On average, the breast augmentation patients studied were 34 years old, 5’ 4” tall and 128 pounds.
Dr Frenzel specializes in breast augmentation surgery, offering the traditional surgery, TUBA breast augmentation, and breast augmentation revision surgery.
