Meet the Breast Implant Removal Team

Breast surgery · implant removal · capsule surgery

Dr. Tongchun Mao is an aesthetic surgeon at Chongqing West District Hospital, where he is Deputy Director and Head of Aesthetic Surgery in its Deputy Director & Head of Skin & Laser Aesthetics · Attending Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending and the responsible physician for this site. He personally performs more than 700 operations a year, within hospital standards of assessment, anaesthesia and follow-up.

His breast practice is planned from measurement rather than from a size request. In an assessment for removal that means establishing the state of the skin envelope, the position of the implant, the nature of the capsule and the shape that is likely to remain, and then deciding whether the operation is removal alone, removal with a lift, or removal with replacement — because those are three different operations with three different recoveries.

Dr. Mao discusses device lifetime at the first appointment rather than the last. Implants are not lifetime devices, exchange at some point is likely, surveillance imaging is recommended for gel implants, and the capsule can contract. He regards a patient who has decided to stop having implants as having made a considered decision rather than a reversal, and plans the operation accordingly.

Clinical focus

• Implant removal with or without replacement, planned around the skin envelope
• Capsulotomy and capsulectomy, and the risks that distinguish them
• Breast lift at the time of removal, or staged after it
• Assessment of rupture, collections and capsule findings before surgery
• Implant surveillance, device records and long-term follow-up

Centre leadership · surgical standards

Dr. Shaoliang Wang is Center Director of the Deputy Director & Head of Skin & Laser Aesthetics · Attending Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending at Chongqing West District Hospital and leads the four-doctor team in which Dr. Mao practices. His role is the guarantee that an individual surgeon's plan sits inside a departmental system rather than beside it.

For a patient having implants removed that system is what makes the safety arrangements checkable: access to diagnostic imaging and pathology, anaesthesia delivered by hospital teams, intensive care support in the building, and a review schedule that continues after the operation rather than ending with it.

Clinical focus

• Center leadership and multidisciplinary case review
• Surgical standards for removal and capsule operations
• Hospital-based support when a removal or an implant problem needs urgent care

Team physician · recovery and follow-up

Dr. Ke He is a physician in the Deputy Director & Head of Skin & Laser Aesthetics · Attending Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending at Chongqing West District Hospital and a member of the four-doctor team alongside Dr. Mao, supporting the assessment and follow-up of surgical patients.

In a removal pathway her work covers the recovery: reviewing a chest that is swollen or has collected fluid, distinguishing ordinary post-operative swelling from a collection that needs drainage, recognising the skin signs that suggest infection, and supporting patients through the weeks when the shape is still changing and judgement is difficult.

Clinical focus

• Review of swelling, collections and drains after removal
• Recognition of infection and wound problems needing same-day care
• Support through the months in which the final shape is still settling

Team physician · surveillance and continuity

Dr. Yongbo Jia is a physician in the Deputy Director & Head of Skin & Laser Aesthetics · Attending Physician, Licensed Aesthetic Attending at Chongqing West District Hospital and a member of the four-doctor team alongside Dr. Mao, supporting the perioperative and follow-up care of surgical patients.

His contribution to a removal pathway is the record and the long view: keeping the implant history in order, documenting what was removed and what was found, and making sure a new breast symptom after removal is assessed as a clinical question in its own right rather than attributed to the operation.

Clinical focus

• Maintaining the implant and operation record, including what was removed
• Review of a breast that changes shape or develops a lump after removal
• Continuity of follow-up once the implants are gone