The Breast Implant ARC: An Algorithm for Determining the Position of the IMF in Breast Augmentation Planning

In breast augmentation surgery, many techniques have been developed and advocated to achieve the best possible results in incision planning. The standard dimensions on which most algorithms are based are width, height and the projection of the silicone gel-filled implants. The ARC is introduced as a new dimension instead of the currently used anatomical silicone gel-filled implants parameters. The algorithm presented in this article is based on the amount of breast parenchyma (P) and the ARC of an anatomical silicone gel-filled implant to obtain an exact positioning of the incision at the new inframammary fold. A patient case is presented to demonstrate the use of the algorithm. To date, this technique has been used in over 1200 patients with reproducible and consistent results. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE IV : This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.