Earlier this week, Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause took to Instagram to share that she had undergone one of the trendy body scans that have been all over social media for the past year or two. And the results weren’t good—in the process, she learned that “both of my breast implants were ruptured.”
A quick 101: Breast implants consist of a three-layer shell made of silicone, which is then either filled with a liquid saline (similar to that you get in an IV drip at the hospital) or silicone gel. “Implants may ultimately rupture due to fold failure, which essentially means that the shell of the implant may simply wear out over time—usually many years later,” says Dr. Lyle Leipziger, chief of plastic surgery at North Shore University Hospital and LIJ Medical Center. “I discuss with all my patients that implants might need to be revised due to rupture at some point during their lifetime.”
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons 2023 report, “breast augmentation, including both primary and revision implant placements, accounted for 304,181 procedures” conducted in the United States. “Although studies have varied on this subject, I generally tell patients that by 10 years after surgery, 10 to 15% of patients with implants will suffer a rupture,” says Kelly Killeen, MD, FACS. “The main risk factor for rupture is the age of the implant—the older the implant, the more likely it is to rupture. Remember to follow up with your plastic surgeon and get the recommended screening imaging to catch ruptures early.”
In her announcement, Stause joked about her breast augmentation, calling her 15-year-old implants “vintage” (as somebody who purposefully wears only vintage clothing, I’ll let it slide that the term typically means 20 years and older)—which is the only clue we have as to what may have caused them to rupture.
“It is highly unlikely that activities in one’s daily life will predispose to an accidental rupture,” Leipzinger says. Double-board certified plastic surgeon David Shafer, MD, FACS notes that typically a high-force incident, like a car accident, is necessary to cause the event, adding that two of his patients who had suffered from implant ruptures were respectively in a jetski accident and hit by a car—so if anything like this happens to you, your implants should be examined.