Breast Implants Linked to Lung, Brain Cancers

A long-term study has found that women with breast implants seem to have higher rates of brain and lung cancer compared to other plastic surgery patients. The researchers, from the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NIH, Bethesda, MD), stress that their findings do not show a direct cause-and-effect relationship but only a link whose significance is unclear. The study was reported in the May issues of two medical journals, Annals of Epidemiology and Epidemiology.

More than 13,000 women with breast implants received prior to 1989 were followed by the researchers for around 13 years and were compared with 4,000 women with other types of plastic surgery and with the general population. The results focused on the plastic surgery group, based on questionnaires returned by 7,500 women and on medical records. Most of the women had silicone implants, which were removed from the market in 1992. Only about 10% of the women had saline implants.

The results showed that women with implants of either type had a threefold risk of dying of respiratory tract diseases, primarily lung cancer, compared to women in the general plastic surgery control group. They also had a higher rate of dying from pneumonia and emphysema and had a twofold risk of dying of brain cancer. In trying to understand the high incidence of brain cancer, the researchers noted the many neurologic alterations noted by women with implants, including memory loss and cognitive dysfunction, and concluded that implants might have been more directly involved than previously thought. According to the lead author, Dr. Louise A. Brinton, chief of the environmental epidemiology branch of the NCI, smoking could not be ruled out as a factor. Since no plausible explanation could be found for the brain cancer finding, further research is needed, say the investigators.

Several years ago, a panel of scientists assembled by the U.S. Institute of Medicine reviewed the medical literature pertaining to silicone implants and reached the conclusion that the implants were not associated with any major disease. Recently, a study published in the May issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery found no evidence to support a link between breast implants and cancer, based only on an analysis of scientific literature.



Related Links:
U.S. National Cancer Institute