The November 5th, 2008, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) printed an article about a possible connection of breast implants and cancer. The type of cancer involved is NOT traditional breast cancer that most people are familiar with and that seems so common today. The cancer involved is a very rare type of lymphoma called Anaplastic Large-cell Lymphoma (ALCL).  The reasearchers were intrigued becasue they saw two cases of this rare cancer in breast implant patients and wondered if there was a connection. The Netherlands-based study looked at all lymphoma patients in the country (population 15,000,000) from 1990-2006. Eleven (11) pateints had the lymphoma in question and 5 of those 11 had breast implants. Based on these findings, the researchers felt that (quote) ”preliminary findings suggest an association between silicone breast prosthesis and ALCL, although the absolute risk is exceedingly low due to the rare occurence of ALCL. These findings require confirmation by other studies”. This means that there could be a connection between the implants and the lymphoma. It is important to remember that this lymphoma is extremely rare and that fact makes proving a connection between cancer qand breast implants very difficult. In my opinion, it is important to monitor this research and let patients know exactly what the facts are so that they can make a smart decision about breast augmentation. It is also imporatnt to emphasize that this is not the type of breast cancer that affects most women and that the reasearch to date on cancer and breast implants shows that there is no connection between the two. More info to follow as it comes out.

Tags: breast implants, cancer, lymphoma

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 11:37 am and is filed under Breast Augmentation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.