Implants are rarely studied by common pathology facilities such as may be encountered in health care centers. Their mandates and resources are limited to tissue studies that answer clinical questions of immediate importance. Yet, disregarding the implant in connection with the tissue study creates an anomaly which often leads to incomplete or inaccurate diagnostic information and may mislead the treating physicians responsible for the care of the patient.

The study of tissue surrounding removed breast implants is overwhelmingly oriented at excluding neoplastic activity. In fact, the more common problems include gross contamination of tissue, granulomata, antigenic activity, gross inflammation, atypical infections, tissue lysis, fat necrosis, mineralization and other pathological conditions that are rarely sought or studied.

Through habits, surgeons feel secure in knowing that there is no tumor activity and therefore neglect other conditions that may be sufficiently serious to warrant additional surgical procedures. Worse yet, many pathological centers do not have criteria or training to establish what has gone wrong with implants and habitually miss key information of clinical importance.

The limits of implants are not widely known even within parts of the clinical community that employ them in large numbers. Improper treatment of devices leading to contamination during disinfection and sterilization and intraoperative damage are commonplace. Methods of removal are frequently primitive, injurious and unnecessarily laborious. Some entail supplemental risks that can lead to mandatory later surgical revisions. With knowledge of the device characteristics and limitations, these risks would be much reduced.

Misconceptions regarding implants often lead to grossly faulty practices. Examples of this include attempted reuse of unsalvagable implants and sterilization methods which render the devices unserviceable or prone to early failure.

The loss of an implant and its surrounding tissue following removal may significantly complicate later treatments if complications are encountered. Whereas tissues reflect the impact of the implant and the surgery on the host, the implants provide information on the success of the surgery which led to the implant and give insight on the prognosis of a long service life and the need for additional procedures.

Advance warning regarding implant problems is given by the tissue condition. Implants must be assessed for their integrity at regular intervals. If they are removed, it is important to account for all the parts. It is not rare to find residual implant fragments that remain embedded in tissue remote from the main implant site. An accounting of the explanted device will reveal missing portions and such information is valuable to a surgeon and a treating physician.

Institutional facilities are rarely equipped or inclined to study tissues which surround implants in detail. The pathological material is not used fully to obtain basic information regarding the success or failure of treatments which led to the implant in the first place; these studies constitute a type of quality assurance regarding these procedures and allow the surgical staff to develop a knowledge base that ultimately benefits other users.

Specialized facilities dealing with plastics and metals habitually perform such studies on directives from clinicians or patients/users. Many of these facilities are not fluent with implants and their environments. Some are ill-equipped to deal with tissue pathology. The capacity to perform alloplastic material studies, as well as tissue pathology and analysis, must coexist with knowledge of materials, physiology of implants, tissue remodelling, pharmacology and other disciplines on which modern medical technology depends.