Fw: Study Links Breast Implants to Lung and Brain Cancers ~ NYTimes

[Guest guest]

From: " ilena rose " <ilena@...>

Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 9:56 PM

Subject: Study Links Breast Implants to Lung and Brain Cancers ~ NYTimes

>

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/health/26BREA.html?searchpv=nytToday & pagew

ante

> d=print

>

>

> April 26, 2001

>

> Study Links Breast Implants to Lung and Brain Cancers

>

> By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

>

> WASHINGTON, April 25 - A long- running study has found that while women

> with breast implants are not at increased risk for most cancers, they

> appear to suffer higher rates of lung and brain cancer than other plastic

> surgery patients, researchers at the National Cancer Institute said today.

>

> The study demonstrated only a link between implants and the two types of

> cancer, not a cause-and- effect relationship, and its significance is

> unclear, said the lead author, Dr. Louise A. Brinton, chief of the cancer

> institute's environmental epidemiology branch.

>

> " What the study showed is no difference for most of the cancer sites,

> which I think is good news, " Dr. Brinton said. " And for the few sites

> which we did find differences, we have no ready explanation. So I would

> not want to alarm women on the basis of one study. "

>

> Nonetheless, the results are likely to inflame the debate over the safety

> of breast implants.

>

> " I see this as a warning, " said Dr. Zuckerman, director of the

> National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families, who served on

> the study's scientific advisory panel. " You can't draw a conclusion from

> these studies, even though they are very well designed, very solid, " said

> Dr. Zuckerman, who nonetheless added, " I think this is very alarming. "

>

> Dr. Brinton's group identified nearly 13,500 women who received breast

> implants before 1989 and followed them for an average of 13 years. The

> women were compared with a control group of 4,000 other plastic surgery

> patients and with the general population. The study results, which focused

> on a comparison between the breast implant patients and the plastic

> surgery control group, were based on questionnaires completed by 7,500 of

> the women, as well as medical records and, in some cases, death

> certificates.

>

> The women's average age when they received their implants was 34, and all

> had implants for at least eight years. Most had silicone implants, which

> the Food and Drug Administration removed from the market in 1992; about 10

> percent had saline implants. The researchers found that the type of

> implant made no difference in a woman's cancer risk.

>

> Results from the study appear this month in two medical journals:

> Epidemiology, and ls of Epidemiology. It found that women in the

> implant group were three times as likely to die of diseases of the

> respiratory tract, primarily lung cancer, as the women in the plastic

> surgery control group, and twice as likely to die of brain cancer.

>

> A separate analysis of the number of malignancies, as opposed to deaths,

> also found higher rates of lung and brain cancer in women with implants.

>

> Previous research has suggested that women with implants may be at

> increased risk for lung problems, and some experts have theorized that

> silicone gel, which coats even the saline implants, migrates to the lung.

> But Dr. Brinton said she could not rule out smoking as a factor.

>

> In her study, the implant patients and the women who had had other plastic

> surgery reported the same rates of smoking. But most of the lung cancer

> information was gleaned from death certificates, so it was impossible for

> researchers to know whether those women smoked. " We couldn't fully account

> for smoking differences, " Dr. Brinton said.

>

> As to the brain cancer finding, she said, researchers do not have a

> plausible explanation for it, and so further research is necessary.

>

> Two years ago, an independent panel of scientists convened by the

> Institute of Medicine reviewed the medical literature on silicone implants

> and concluded that they were not linked to any major disease.

>

> But that panel focused much of its attention on breast cancer and

> connective tissue diseases like lupus and arthritis, and Dr. Brinton said

> much of the research in that area had serious deficiencies. She said her

> group was now analyzing results on connective tissue disorders.

>

> Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company |

>

> ls of Epidemiology

> Volume 11, Issue 4,

> Pages 219-279 (May 2001)

> Cancer Risk at Sites Other than the Breast Following Augmentation

> Mammoplasty, Pages 248-256

> Louise A. Brinton, Jay H. Lubin, Cay Burich, Theodore Colton, S. Lori

> Brown and N. Hoover

>

>