Silicone-based products

Silicone is an oil derived from the mineral silicon. It can be used for filling in plastic surgery, and has acquired a poor reputation as a result of misuse over the past twenty years. However, academic cosmetic surgeons in the USA are planning studies of a product called SilSkin for treatment of facial lipoatrophy. For good results silicone must be injected in tiny quantities using hundreds of micro-injections; previous bad results have been partly the consequence of injecting larger volumes of silicone (as well as using impure products rather than medical grade silicone oil).

In a presentation at the Fourth International Workshop on Adverse Drug Reactions and Lipodystrophy in HIV, Dr Derek Jones, Associate Professor of Dermatology at UCLA, reported that liquid injectable silicone had been used for treatment of lipoatrophy in several hundred patients with few or no serious complications prior to be being banned in the early 1990s.

SilSkin is not available in the United Kingdom, and will only be available through clinical trials in the United States.