Let the biggest trade-off in the great many benefits of breast augmentation surgery be the scar! In exchange for an ever-fading and often barely noticeable skin blemish, you reap the advantages of breasts with voluptuous size, shape and volume. And now, with new techniques introducing themselves to the realm of breast surgery, surgeons and patients alike are getting that bit closer to winning the Scar Wars.

Axillary breast augmentation

From the continuous quest of the surgeon to minimise the much-feared scar, the invention of the axillary approach to breast augmentation came about. This approach leaves the inevitable scar in the armpit, an area which aesthetically is dissociated from the breast  unit. The small incision (approximately five centimeters long) is placed horizontally in the skin creases of the armpit and when it matures, it usually blends with the creases and becomes quite inconspicuous. The axillary approach leads easily into a sub-pectoral pocket, which is the favourable position elected by most plastic surgeons for the insertion of implants.

The result, from the perspective of scarring, is that it is exposed when you elevate your arm, particularly when you wear a sleeveless top. The scar will take six to twelve months to mature fully and the patient will be required to restrain arm movement in order to keep the scar concealed until this maturation process is complete.

The advantage of the approach, of course, is the avoidance of any surgery on the actual breasts. In addition to avoiding scars, this technique avoids alterations to the architecture of the breast, ensuring breast feeding after the surgery. It also has a cosmetic advantage over the sub-mammary incision, (incision at the junction of the breast and the chest wall) an incision that is exposed whenever the breast is bare, whenever your bikini top rides a bit high or whenever the breast inadvertently moves upwards and is perhaps more exposed than one would ordinarily prefer!

What are the risks involved?

On rare occasions when numbness of the inner arm is experienced, it usually settles within a few weeks. This numbness is the result of the stretching of the nerves running to the inner arms for the purpose of insertion of the implant; these nerves run adjacent to the surgical field. Other incidental problems are similar to any other complications when incisions are performed and implants are inserted i.e. asymmetry and/or high or low riding implants. On the rare occasions, hypertrophic scar or keloids can occur under the armpit.