Guest guest Posted October 5, 2008 Report Share Posted October 5, 2008 This is good reading...love....Lea ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` >>Subject: Dr. Garry interview >> >>Forward from Jeannie, >> >>Ivanhoe Broadcast News Interview Transcript with >> Garry, Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Tulane >>Medical School, New Orleans, LA >>TOPIC: SILICONE BREAST IMPLANT TEST, #950 >> >> >>How did this test come about? >> >>Dr. Garry: Like many scientific discoveries it was almost by accident. >>We knew that some people had reported that women with silicone breast >>implants had conditions like people with autoimmune diseases. So we were >>looking for some traditional auto antigens and antibody responses in >>these women. What we found was something completely different, we found >>an antibody response to polymers which was totally unexpected. >> >>What are polymers? >> >>Dr. Garry: Polymers are long repeating sub units and they are a common >>chemical structure. Many parts of our body have these polymeric >>components in them and silicone which is used to make the breast >>implants is also a polymeric substance. So it's kind of a generic term. >> >>So you started out looking for other autoimmune responses? >> >>Dr. Garry: We started looking for traditional auto antibodies that >>people with diseases like systemic lupus or scleroderma have and we >>really didn't find those in our breast implant recipients but we did >>find this other response. >> >>These polymers are related to the silicone in breast implants? >> >>Dr. Garry: Chemically they're related. We are certainly not sure that >>it's exactly the silicone polymers that are inducing the response, it >>could be some other polymeric substance in the body. They're all related >>so I think we're just picking up a footprint of a common foot. >> >>Why is this controversial, has this been tested elsewhere and not come >>up with these results? >> >>Dr. Garry: Nobody has looked at this exact response that we're looking >>for and we certainly didn't set out to look for it. We more or less came >>upon it by accident. People that have looked for traditional autoimmune >>diseases or known autoimmune diseases in patients with implants haven't >>found them. What we found is people with more typical kind of >>conditions, fatigue, muscle pain and other symptoms, are the people that >>have these antibodies. >> >>Are these necessarily silicone patients or can people without the >>silicone have this? >> >>Dr. Garry: It's more rare in the normal population. There is a >>background of people that do get this antibody response. Of course >>silicone is pretty common in our modern environment, it's present in a >>lot of foods and medicines, it's present in make up so we don't know >>that the antibodies we're detecting in people without silicone breast >>implants might not be due to some other form of silicone exposure. >> >>Are you finding large amounts in the women who do have the implants? >> >>Dr. Garry: Certainly they have these implants in their bodies and the >>silicone does tend to leak out of them, sometimes the implants rupture >>so they're getting a very large, continuous exposure. The other types of >>silicone exposures that you might get from the environment or medicines >>are much smaller. >> >>Do you see a correlation there? >> >>Dr. Garry: Yes. With the implants the silicone exposure is continuous, >>if the implant has ruptured it's going to be pretty dramatic. So that's >>one reason why we may have picked up the antibodies in this population >>whereas a population without implants their silicone exposure is going >>to be a lot less. >> >>What kind of test is this, what's the procedure? >> >>Dr. Garry: First you draw blood from the patient and then you collect a >>fraction of the blood called serum from it, it's a traditional serum >>antibody test. Then we look to see if the serum has these particular >>antibodies, the ones that are reacting to the polymers. The test is a >>fairly simple one you just put the polymers on a little strip and then >>add the serum with the antibodies in it. If the antibodies are present >>they'll bind to the polymers on the strip and we can come back and >>detect the binding of the antibodies to that strip. >> >>It comes out almost like a photograph? >> >>Dr. Garry: Yes. If the antibodies are bound we can come back with some >>reagents which will give us a color and the color will precipitate right >>on the strip so you get a nice little line if the antibody is present. >> >>How many people have you tested with this? >> >>Dr. Garry: We've tested several thousand silicone breast implant >>recipients, we've tested patients with known autoimmune diseases, we've >>tested healthy blood donors. We've tested quite a few patients and our >>results seem to hold up over a fairly broad range of individuals. >> >>In the several thousand breast patients how many have come up positive? >> >>Dr. Garry: It's about 50% and one reason we think it might not be higher >>is that we're really testing for a surrogate. We may not be testing >>exactly for the polymer that people have been exposed to, in other words >>the silicone itself. The polymer we put on our assay is not silicone per >>se. The antibody response is a cross reactive one so that's why we think >>we're only picking it up in about half of the patients. The interesting >>thing is that the sicker the patient, the more well-developed symptoms, >>fatigue or work related disabilities, they are much more likely to have >>the antibody than a woman with the implant who is relatively healthy. >> >>What kind of women are you seeing coming in here, the really sick ones, >>what are their symptoms? >> >>Dr. Garry: Here we don't really see the women, we mostly see their blood >>and blood products. We're a diagnostic development lab, we're not >>clinical rheumatologists. We do work closely with a lot of >>rheumatologists in the city and across the country that send us these >> samples from the patients. The typical profile of the patient that we >>found with these antibodies would have muscle pain, unremitting fatigue, >>restless sleep, they tend to be disabled in their ability to perform >>their normal everyday tasks. So it's not a typical rheumatic disease >>where you might have a butterfly rash, or a kidney, or a heart >>involvement like lupus but a different set of symptoms. >> >>Now that we have this information what can be done with it to help these >>patients? >> >>Dr. Garry: The first thing is that is if the antibodies are important in >>the disease process we might be able to remove the source of the antigen >>that's soliciting the antibodies. In fact many patients with silic > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.