The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a communication to inform health care practitioners and the public about a possible association between breast implants and anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL). Although ALCL is extremely rare, the FDA believes that women with breast implants may have a very small but increased risk of developing the condition. ALCL is very rare in it’s own occurance (normally found in 3 out of 100 million women without implants). Women who were found to have this type of cancer were being treated with unusual problems related to their implants such as long-standing capsular contracture, fluid collections, pain and lumps. Women affected had their implants places for bothe cosmetic and reconstructive reasons. Both Saline and silicone gel implants were included.
NOTE – ALCL is NOT a type of “breast cancer” as you normally hear about breast cancers. There is still not any association between breast implants causing breast cancer.
For women who are not having any problems, reassurance is the only recommendation at this time. If anyone is having problems with lumps or pain, I would recommend returning to your Plastic Surgeon for examination.
I have incuded links below which you can use to get more detail about the FDA as well as the comments and response from our national society, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Please feel free to call 410-902-9800, email, or blog if you have any questions.
https://www.plasticsurgery.org/x10998.xml
https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/ucm240000.htm
https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/ImplantsandProsthetics/BreastImplants/ucm239996.htm
Dr. S
