In an attempt to look better and meet the social standard of beauty, many women undergo plastic surgery. More and more women have breast implants. Apparently, this procedure is not as safe as it was believed. A new report shows that breast implants can lead to a rare form of cancer.
This type of cancer was first discovered in 2011. Now it is linked to 9 deaths. The FDA stated that since 2011, they received more than 350 reports of cancer cases linked to breast implants. The biggest problem is that these women did not develop breast cancer after the implants, they developed anaplastic large-cell lymphoma.
This type of rare cancer forms in the capsule of scar tissue around the implant. Anaplastic large-cell lymphoma is a treatable condition and usually, it is not fatal. Despite this fact, until now, 9 women died from this rare cancer.
The condition is more likely to occur when women have textured implants. This is because these implants have a pebbly surface. From those 359 reports, 231 included information about the implant. More than 200 of those were textured implants. The others were smooth implants.
Women start to realize that something is wrong when they develop swelling, lumps, fluid buildup, and pain. The FDA report shows that more than 290,000 women had implants in the US in 2016. From them, 109,000 received the implants after surviving breast cancer.
In most of the cases, when the implant was removed, the cancer was eliminated. Unfortunately, some women have to go through radiation and chemotherapy. Experts mentioned that the body responds differently to textured implants than to smooth ones. This might be why there are more cases of cancer caused by such implants.
The FDA mentioned that doctors should look for this cancer in women who had the implant a long time ago. Since it is so rare, there is little information about it. This means that doctors should be alert and make check-ups once in a while to see that everything is ok.
The agency also said that women should take into consideration this risk before they decide to have breast implants. They should also be aware of the fact that there is an increased risk when it comes to textured implants.
What is your opinion about this report? Did you know that breast implants can cause a rare type of cancer?
Image source: Wikipedia