Women with cosmetic breast implants may face an increased breast cancer risk, researchers warned today.
Cosmetic breast augmentation has become increasingly popular, write Dr Eric Lavigne of the Hopital du Saint-Sacrement, Quebec, Canada, and colleagues in The BMJ.
"Although breast augmentation is popular, controversies about the long-term health effects of breast implants remain," they add.
Evidence suggests that implants do not raise the risk of breast cancer, but it is possible that they "may impair the ability to identify breast cancer at an early stage by mammography" because they may obscure some of the breast tissue.
So the researchers looked at whether having breast implants before breast cancer diagnosis predicts survival by reviewing observational studies.
They found that women with cosmetic breast implants had a 26% raised risk of non-localised (i.e. spread) breast cancer at diagnosis. However, this figure, taken from 12 observational studies, was not statistically significant.
Then they looked at survival using five observational studies, and found that death rates were raised by a significant 38%.
The authors conclude: "The research published to date suggests that cosmetic breast augmentation adversely affects the survival of women who are subsequently diagnosed as having breast cancer."
But they also state: "These findings should be interpreted with caution, as some studies included in the meta-analysis on survival did not adjust for potential confounders."
They call for further investigation into diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer among women with breast implants.
Lavigne, E. et al. Breast cancer detection and survival among women with cosmetic breast implants: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. BMJ 1 May 2013 doi: 10.1136/bmj.f2399 [abstract]
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