Breast Implant Safety
Posted 9/3/2011
Posted in
I seem to be on a roll with entries about reconstruction. This is a report from MedPage about the safety of silicone implants. You will recall that, for a number of years, they were unavailable, and the single option was saline implants. That has changed, and the new silicone models have been in use long enough for their safely to be evaluated. Here is the start of the story and then a link:
Breast Implant Safety to Be Focus of FDA Panel |
By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today
Published: August 29, 2011
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| WASHINGTON -- An FDA advisory committee is holding a two-day meeting this week to discuss how the agency can better track the safety and efficacy of silicone gel-filled breast implants years after a woman has received them. FDA's General and Plastic Surgery Devices Panel on Tuesday and Wednesday will discuss whether current studies that track women who've had silicone implants are adequate, how future follow-up studies should be designed, and how to encourage more women to get magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of their breasts every few years to make sure the implants haven't ruptured. Silicone implants became controversial in the 1990s when thousands of women claimed their implants had caused neurological and rheumatological illnesses. The implants were first marketed in the U.S. in 1962. Thirty years later, in 1992, the FDA requested that manufacturers of silicone implants stop providing them and that surgeons stop implanting them until the agency could determine whether they were safe. Later that year, an advisory committee voted that no manufacturers of silicone breast implants on the market at the time had proved they were safe, and they should be removed from the market. The FDA decided that women undergoing reconstructive surgery or having their old silicone implants replaced could continue to receive the silicone implants. (Breast cancer patients seem to be happier with breast reconstruction after mastectomy when they choose silicone rather than saline implants, a study found). The first saline-filled implant was approved in 2000. http://www.medpagetoday.com/Surgery/PlasticSurgery/28263 |
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