ABSTRACT
Physicians in many surgical specialties, including ophthalmology, orthopedics, dermatology, and plastic surgery, require space-filling substances for some of the procedures that they perform. Several materials have been used in the past in soft tissue augmentation procedures, including paraffin, silicone, and collagen (1,2). However, paraffin and silicone have been found to produce severe foreign body reactions and are known to migrate from the injection site. Collagen has several drawbacks when used as a filler material in these procedures, not the least of which is rapid degradation, leading to frequent reinjection to maintain the desired effect. Infrequent but significant hypersensitivity reactions have been noted with the use of collagen, requiring the physician to perform allergy testing prior to the use of this material in surgery (3,4). Physicians should be aware of the limitations of each of these materials when making decisions about augmentation procedures; these limitations also include product cost and longevity.
