The trickle is constant, despite the alarms and warnings. The media in countries such as Venezuela continue to report problems, even resulting in death, arising from the use of biopolymers, despite the ban that prevents their use.
After the death, at the end of July, of a woman who had injected the illicit substance into her buttocks, the president of the Venezuelan Society of Plastic Surgery, Ramón Zapata, recalled that biopolymers are used by unscrupulous or simply ignorant people to enlarge certain parts of the body, especially the face and buttocks, and called on the population not to resort to these banned substances, which cause lifelong conditions.
“To sell them, they disguise them under another name. No patient should allow themselves to be injected by unqualified personnel or let procedures be performed on them in dubious places,” he said.
Doctors are not the only ones on alert. Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz has also joined the campaign: “I want to inform the country that biopolymers are banned in Venezuela; it is a highly dangerous substance that causes the death of those who inject it,” she said. “We have warned, and yet this practice continues. I warn those who usually apply this substance that we will do everything necessary to punish those responsible for carrying out these criminal practices.”
We are talking about Venezuela because current events dictate it, but it is not the only setting for these illicit practices, not to mention that silicone oil has been the most widely used filler in the history of aesthetic medicine.
It is important to stress that resorting to biopolymers has serious consequences: displacement due to gravity, inflammation and discoloration of the surrounding tissues, the formation of granulomas, infection of the recipient area…
And also that the removal of biopolymers is possible, although very complicated, because they infiltrate the surrounding tissues and it is no easy task to remove as much of the biopolymer as possible without sacrificing too much of the surrounding tissue.
When we take on a case, we do so from experience, confident in our surgical skill and our anatomical knowledge. Only then is it possible to perform these highly complex secondary surgeries with a guarantee of success.
If you would like more information, contact our team at Clínica Dr. Fernández Blanco, call 915 54 09 24 (Madrid) or 952 850 468 (Marbella, Málaga).
Dr. Alfredo Fernández Blanco
The plastic surgeon Dr. Alfredo Fernandez Blanco stands out in his branch of medicine, as the best breast surgeon, he is also a pioneer in the so-called secondary surgeries or sequelae. With more than 30 years of experience and thousands of successful cases, he continues to achieve the most natural results that can be expected in a cosmetic surgery operation.
