Breast Implants May Impair Breast CA Diagnosis, Prognosis
WEDNESDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- Women who have received cosmetic breast implants may have an increased risk of diagnosis at a non-localized stage of breast cancer, and seem to have worse breast cancer survival, according to research published online April 30 in BMJ.
Eric Lavigne, from the Université Laval in Quebec, and colleagues conducted a systematic review of the literature and meta-analyses to examine the potential correlation between cosmetic breast implants and the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer.
In the first meta-analysis based on 12 studies, the researchers found that women with implants who had breast cancer had increased odds for a non-localized stage of breast cancer at diagnosis (odds ratio, 1.26; P = 0.058), compared with women without implants who had breast cancer. In a second meta-analysis which included five studies, survival after breast cancer was significantly reduced for women who had implants compared with those without implants (hazard ratio, 1.38).
"The accumulating evidence suggests that women with cosmetic breast implants who develop breast cancer have an increased risk of being diagnosed as having non-localized breast tumors more frequently than do women with breast cancer who do not have implants," the authors write. "Moreover, current evidence also suggests that cosmetic breast implants adversely affect breast cancer specific survival following the diagnosis of such disease."
