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Women Prefer Silicone to Saline After Mastectomy |
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Written by Jessica Smith
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Tuesday, 09 November 2010 |
Women who have breast reconstruction after cancer surgery tend to be happier with the cosmetic results of silicone implants than with saline-filled ones, a study suggests.
Silicone breast implants have had a troubled history. In 1992, the U.S. put limits on their use, over concerns that the devices could leak and potentially contribute to cancer or autoimmune disorders such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. But studies since then, including a report from the Institute of Medicine, an advisory panel to the U.S. government, have concluded that there is no clear link between silicone implants and those diseases.
In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved widespread use of two brands of silicone gel-filled implants for breast reconstruction and cosmetic breast augmentation.
Surgeons have long held that silicone implants produce better cosmetic results than saline-filled varieties. But it has not been clear what patients think, said Dr. Colleen M. McCarthy, a surgeon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the lead researcher on the new study.
For their study, McCarthy and her colleagues surveyed 672 women who had undergone breast reconstruction after a mastectomy (removal of the breast) at one of three U.S. and Canadian medical centers in the previous one to eight years.
Of the 482 women who completed the study, 306 had received saline implants and 176 silicone implants.
Overall, the researchers found, women with silicone implants had higher scores on a questionnaire designed to gauge patients' satisfaction with the look and feel of their breasts after breast surgery.
The difference in scores did not indicate that women were unhappy with saline implants, McCarthy said.
"These women were still very satisfied with saline implants," she told Reuters Health. However, she also pointed out that the difference in satisfaction between the saline and silicone groups was similar in magnitude to the difference between women who had received radiation therapy for their cancer and those who had not.
Women who'd received radiation tended to be less satisfied with their breast reconstruction -- which, McCarthy noted, is not surprising, as radiation patients generally have a higher rate of implant-related complications like capsular contracture, in which scar tissue forms and compresses the implant and breast tissue into a hard, unnatural shape.
The bottom line for women facing breast reconstruction, according to McCarthy, is that "it's likely that they'll like the look and feel of silicone implants better."
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