Facial Implant Imaging on CT scans

Q: Dr. Eppley, I have been following a lot of your work and you seem to know a lot about computer imaging. I think I will have to go with you for my next procedure because my current doctor doesn’t seem as informed as you.

I had off the shelf cheek implants inserted by a surgeon who put them in asymmetrically ( everyone makes mistakes, not a huge deal ). He wanted to see the asymmetry so he can better know how to fix it during revision, so he ordered an X ray for me, but the X rays only showed us the screws and not the implant. 

What type of imaging should we order so we can see the silicone implants and not just the screws? Would a CT scan work? I see in your writing here https://exploreplasticsurgery.com/category/custom-facial-implants/page/11/ that a CT scan works, but do we just order a regular CT scan or do we need to ask for some special CT scan that shows silicone?

Thank you very much for your time.

A: The short answer is that the implant images are in the CT scan, which I assume is a 3D CT scan which is the type of scan to accurately assess facial implant positioning. But if you don’t have special software to pull them out of the data, you will not be able to see them.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana