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What will be the future of TUBA now that silicone implants are back in the market of cosmetic surgery?
Tuba
- Thread starter Dr 90210
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There's no future & TUBA will quickly be a very minor footnote. The transaxillary approach is also largely going to be forgotten due to the difficulties in placing gel implants via that approach. It can certainly be done, but it traumatizes the implant shell signifigantly, which has been identified on EM as the culprit in many ruptures. The coming form-stable Inamed 410 & Mentor CPG gels require even larger incisions due to their rigidity.
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Hey Ollie, do you think that you'll be doing many augs with gels? I'm not sure that patients will want to pay the additional cost. I also don't think that they'll accept the larger scar. Maybe I'm a bit biased. I just like the safety of knowing that when a saline implant ruptures it's obvious and easy to fix.
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To answer your question I think you need to look at two things.
1. prior to the "silicone crisis" of the early 90's, 97% of implants used in the United States were silicone
2. in the rest of the world (where both saline & silicone have been continuously available), silicone current holds 95-98% market share
Implant manufacturers are privately projecting at least 50% market share for silicone by next year and 70-80% after that. What the upper ceiling is remains to be seen, but I bet we're going to be using 90%+ silicone within 5 years & I think the form-stable implants (Inamed's 410 & Mentor's CPG) will dominate a few years from now as the rupture rate is so low (at least thru 6 years, ~ 0.3% on the only literature on this). Right now, I think cost will continue to be an issue that may make the price-sensitive group more likely to pick saline. OTOH financing is so simple right now that $1000 difference is pretty insignifigant over a 3-5 year period
1. prior to the "silicone crisis" of the early 90's, 97% of implants used in the United States were silicone
2. in the rest of the world (where both saline & silicone have been continuously available), silicone current holds 95-98% market share
Implant manufacturers are privately projecting at least 50% market share for silicone by next year and 70-80% after that. What the upper ceiling is remains to be seen, but I bet we're going to be using 90%+ silicone within 5 years & I think the form-stable implants (Inamed's 410 & Mentor's CPG) will dominate a few years from now as the rupture rate is so low (at least thru 6 years, ~ 0.3% on the only literature on this). Right now, I think cost will continue to be an issue that may make the price-sensitive group more likely to pick saline. OTOH financing is so simple right now that $1000 difference is pretty insignifigant over a 3-5 year period