The hits keep coming....

This is becoming redundant I know, but there continues to be a flurry of new literature and announcements re. breast implants and their safety.

Following in the heels of April's report on the lack of cancer risk found in Danish implant patients in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (see recent blog entry below), a publication about to be released in the American Journal of Epidemiology reports that a cohort of nearly 25,000 patients in Canada were observed to have a whopping 43% lower incidence of breast cancer and across the board lower mortality rate for all cancers.

A summary by CNN online can be read here

These two reports do not give evidence to suggest a protective effect of implants, but probably reflect a selection bias of patients choosing breast surgery. Presumably these patients are younger, healthier, and with less breast tissue then society at large. There have been some left-field theories on how the presence of implants could be tumor-supressive by lowering the temperature of the adjacent tissue or that there could be an immuno-stimulatory effect of a foreighn body. Neither of these ideas has been examined in a meaningful way.

The take home message: There appears (at this time) to be no evidence in multiple, well-done studies of a causitive relationship between breast implants and cancer.