Breast implants linked to brain and lung cancer

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Breast implants linked to brain, lung cancer

By Rita Rubin, USA TODAY

Two new studies link breast implants to a higher risk of brain or lung cancer, but at least one researcher in the field attributes the findings to chance.

Compared with the general population of women the same age, those who had received cosmetic breast implants were more than twice as likely to develop or die of brain cancer, the studies found.

Their risk of developing or dying of lung cancer was about the same as that of all women the same age. But the risk was more than twice that of a comparison group of women who had undergone other types of cosmetic surgery. The studies did not find higher rates of other smoking-related cancers, such as bladder tumors.

Still, National Cancer Institute epidemiologist Louise Brinton, lead author of both papers, called their findings for the most part reassuring. The studies did not find increased risks of multiple myeloma, sarcomas or blood cancers — three types of malignancies about which previous research had raised concerns, Brinton says.

ph McLaughlin, a scientist at the Rockville, Md.-based International Epidemiology Institute, says, "These are likely just chance findings." No other studies have found a higher risk of brain cancer in women with implants, says McLaughlin, who studies health risks of Scandinavian implant recipients. And previous studies that have found increased lung cancer risk have attributed it to higher rates of smoking, he says.

An Institute of Medicine report in June concluded that silicone-gel implants do not cause life-threatening diseases, but can lead to serious complications.

Both of Brinton's studies, which appear in the May issues of Epidemiology and ls of Epidemiology, focused on the same group: 13,488 women who had received cosmetic implants before 1989.

Only about 12% had saline implants; most of the others had silicone gel implants. Except in clinical trials, silicone gel implants have been banned for breast augmentation in the USA since 1992 because of a lack of data about safety and effectiveness. An estimated 800,000 to 1 million women have received silicone breast implants since the early 1960s, Brinton"s team writes.

Both studies compared the implant patients with the general population, as well as to 3,936 women who had undergone other types of plastic surgery. The researchers reviewed medical records and death certificates. They also surveyed the surviving women about their medical history and lifestyle factors that might affect their risk of life-threatening illness.

Both the implant recipients and the other plastic surgery patients had lower death rates overall than the general population. Like elective surgery patients, both groups of women probably were generally healthier than their peers, the researchers write. But the implant recipients did have higher cancer death rates than the other cosmetic surgery patients.

Asked whether implant recipients should worry about brain or lung cancer, Brinton said, "I would be hesitant to make a conclusion based on this one study."