The breast implants they are often used for the cosmetic restoration of women with breast cancer who have undergone a mastectomy. In addition, they are also largely used by women for cosmetic reasons. Placement of implants is a relatively safe procedure, but it can be combined by side effectssuch as local pain and irritation, implant rupture, or hardening of the implant capsule that may lead to reoperations for breast reconstruction.

Recently, in fact, the American Drug Agency issued a warning instruction about possible danger appearance of plaques carcinomas or lymphomas from the use of breast implants.

As early as the 90s, the US Food and Drug Administration had imposed a restriction on the use of silicone implants in the United States only for women undergoing cosmetic reconstruction after mastectomy. This restriction was imposed due to reports of lymphoma development in particular anaplastic lymphoma from large cells in women who had undergone cosmetic breast reconstruction using implants.

What do the Greek scientists say?

As reported by the doctors of the Therapeutic Clinic (Alexandra Hospital) Theodora Psaltopoulou (pathologist, professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine), dr. Maria Kaparelou (oncologist – pathologist), Michalis Liontos (assistant professor of Oncology) and Thanos Dimopoulos (former rector of EKPA, professor of Therapeutics – Oncology – Hematology and director of the Therapeutic Clinic):

A number of epidemiological studies have shown that women who place implants have 40 times greater risk for the development of this rare type of lymphoma, but again the probability of the disease is very small. Specifically, so far they have been announced 1,400 cases of anaplastic large cell lymphomas in women who have had breast implants and the incidence of the disease is estimated to be 1 in 10,000 implant cases.

The risk, of course, for women who have implants placed after a mastectomy remains extremely low when compared to the risk of breast cancer recurrence.

Most importantly, removal of the implant is curative for patients who develop this type of lymphoma, and metastatic disease is extremely unlikely to develop. Therefore, it is important for women who have implants to monitor their breasts for any changes and to be seen by their doctor immediately in these cases.

THE type of implant appears to play a role in the development of lymphoma as all the cases published so far involve reliefs implants silicone. There are no reports of women placing smooth implants. Of course, the use of smooth implants is mainly in the United States where there was a restriction on the use of textured implants until 2006, in contrast to the rest of the world and Europe where similar restrictions did not apply.

In recent years, 19 cases of development have also been published carcinomas from squamous cells in patients who had undergone breast implant placement. This disease is even rarer than the already rare cases of lymphomas in breast implant patients.

However, it can be particularly aggressive or even fatal, which is why the US Food and Drug Administration last year renewed its warning guidelines for breast implants. Of course, then an epidemiological study was published that looked at the possibility of squamous cell carcinoma in 57,000 women with breast cancer who had breast implants. The population was followed for an average of 7 years and only two cases of this type of cancer were found, a number that cannot support a causal relationship between the placement of the implants and the development of this type of cancer. There are currently no longer-term follow-up data, and this is especially true for women who have implants placed for cosmetic reasons, an operation that is usually performed on young women with a life expectancy of several decades.

Therefore, the EKPA experts conclude that the occurrence of cancer or lymphoma in women who place breast implants is an extremely rare case based on the existing scientific data and does not raise particular concern. However, women who wish to undergo this operation should be aware of all the possible risks, and this concerns much more those who place implants for purely cosmetic reasons.