Breast implant illness is not a recognized disease but rather a diffuse collection of symptomology that is very real to those who suffer from it. So much so that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made the decision to address this imprecise, patient-created term on their website. The breast implant illness inclusion can be located under cautions concerning implants.

The report indicates that the FDA considers the overall body symptoms a risk for anyone considering breast augmentation. It also mentions that the grasp as to what causes them is tenuous at best among the medical scientific community.

So what might someone suffering from breast implant illness experience? According to Allure, here are some of the major complaints:

• Brain fog
• Memory loss
• Joint pain
• Skin rashes
• Overall fatigue
• Tinnitus
• Throat-clearing

The FDA’s History with Breast Implants

According to the National Women’s Health Network (NWHN), breast implants had been available on the commercial marketplace for many years prior to the drug and device oversight agency gaining the authority to regulate them. Because of pressure from the NWHN, who in turn had heard thousands of complaints from women who were convinced their breast augmentation surgeries had made them sick, the U.S. Congress investigated. The FDA was then forced to make the manufacturers study the implant devices they made.

The devices were removed from the market pending investigation until 2005, according to NWHN, at which point certain types of silicone-based breast implants officially sanctioned by the FDA were brought back. This was felt by many to be done too soon as longitudinal studies had not yet been completed.

FDA Brings Other Implant-Related Health Concerns Forward

In 2011, the FDA first addressed a possible link between a type of T-cell lymphoma—or cancer of the immune system—and breast implants. Anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is estimated to occur at the rate of approximately one patient in 3,817 to 30,000 implant recipients.

As indicated by the NWHN, there has been no disease bias in terms of implant filling or texture. Nevertheless, ALCL seems to occur more often in women who had implants with a textured surface placed within the chest wall.

A Connection Confirmed

In 2016, according to the Center for Research, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized Breast Implant Associated ALCL (BIA-ALCL) for the first time. Although noting its rarity, the WHO claimed that its diagnosis rate is much higher among women who possess breast implants. The lymphoma is found in the scar capsule and fluid which tends to surround the breast implant bilaterally after breast augmentation surgery.

The report acknowledges that this type of lymphoma typically doesn’t show up in the first few years after surgery. As a point of fact, the cancer—as most cancers—can take a number of years after exposure to the offending element to develop.

Questions stimulated by this delay in diagnosis are, ‘Is it the silicone and implant itself that are the problem?’, or ‘Is it the immune system response to the foreign object in the body?’ at the heart of breast implant malaise and cancer.

Thankfully, as BIA-ALCL is only found in the scar tissue surrounding the implant – if it has not spread to other tissues in the body, treatment should be simple.

Learn More

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.