[Need for a German Breast Implant Registry - Pilot Project Breast Implant Template]

Scandals concerning breast implants confuse patients, medical doctors and the public. Till now legally binding consequences are missing despite repeated requests. The aim of this study was to establish and implement a breast implant template for our clinic to increase the patient's safety and the assessment of implants in course of time.

In January 2013 our clinic started a pilot project with a self-developed digital breast implant template. This digital template is filled out by the surgeon after each breast implant operation. Furthermore, we retrospectively evaluated the data of all patients that underwent breast implant surgery in our clinic since 2000. Till the end of December 2015 we created 408 breast implant forms. The time spent for processing this template and reasons for implantation, explantation or revision have been collected.

247 primary augmentations and 161 revisions of breast implants had been performed (n=408 breast implant forms). Main reason for explantation or revision was capsular fibrosis (n=304). The time spent for processing this template for primary implantation was 01:57 min (MW: 01:57±00:49) and for implant revision 02:13 min (MW: 02:13±00:38).

The breast implant template optimized the quality of our treatment, revealed possible complications quickly, allowed a valuable tracing of the breast implants and improved the consultation of our patients with regards to different devices and therapies.