Breast augmentation is the most popular plastic surgery procedures used today. Last year, there were nearly 300,000 breast augmentations, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), and it seems unlikely that there will be much of a decline in the near future. Despite changing trends in fashion and style, the trend in human evolution is toward larger breasts, and those who are not where they want to be on the distribution will seek to move up whenever they can. Surgical breast enlargement is almost as old as surgery, and long before that women tried many forms of salves and devices to attempt to stimulate the growth of their breasts. So breast augmentation is likely here to stay, but what will breast augmentation be like ten, fifty, or a hundred years from now?

In the next 10 Years: Natural breast augmentation using stem cells and transplanted fat is on the horizon. Although some surgeons may want you to think that this technology is here, today, the truth is that the results are still too erratic and there are too many unknowns to call this a “current” technology. There are still several concerns. For example, the Cytori system for borrowing and concentrating stem cells for use in breast augmentation or reconstruction failed to get approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over concerns that the very factors crucial for survival of transplanted fat (the generation of new blood vessels) may make them more likely to become tumerous.

But many women who are getting augmentation with breast implants today may consider this option when it comes time to replace their implants, although it currently looks like this method will never achieve the same level of size increases that implants do.

In the next 50 Years: Why work with the breasts nature gave you? Scientists are currently working on ways to create a tissue mold and then stimulate the growth of tissue to completely fill out the mold with the desired size, shape, and type of tissue. Eventually, this will allow breast surgeons to grow women a completely new breast of the exact size and shape desired. This technology is in its infancy, but may soon be available for small-scale reconstructions, such as for lumpectomies.

In the next 100 Years: Recently, there has been a great deal of progress in understanding the genetic triggers affected breast development, both the good ones and the bad. Right now, scientists are working on ways to turn off the genes that trigger breast cancer, but soon after, they will probably also identify the genes that control breast growth. During young adulthood, women will be able to decide how large they want their breasts to be, and their doctors will turn on the genes that stimulate breast growth to give them the size and shape of breasts they desire.

However, if you can’t wait for researchers to iron out the bugs in these revolutionary breast augmentation methods, Dr. Vasdev Rai is a board-certified plastic surgeon conversant in the most advanced, proven technologies for achieving breast augmentation. To learn more about the best breast augmentation options available today, please call or email the Cosmetic Surgical Center to schedule a consultation.