“You may have seen it on the news: a group of women sued a silicone implant manufacturer. The media regularly reports on all kinds of health issues attributed to breast implants, from muscle pain to cognitive impairments. Previous studies seemed to confirm that there is a link. However, those researchers compared groups of women who were, in fact, not comparable.
In my doctoral research, I compared two groups that are comparable: breast cancer patients who did undergo reconstruction with a breast implant, and patients who did not. We were pleasantly surprised by the number of women who were willing to participate in this study. Thanks to these thousands of participants, we were able to demonstrate that there is no link between exposure to silicone breast implants and symptoms known as ‘Breast Implant Illness’. We also found no differences between the two groups in terms of rheumatic and autoimmune diseases. This is good news, and means that women who have breast implants have no cause for concern, and breast cancer patients considering breast reconstruction have a safe option available to them.
Of course, our research does not imply that women with implants cannot develop health problems, or that those problems aren't serious. We can only conclude that they are most likely not caused by the silicone. I am now a resident at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Dordrecht and would like to become a surgeon. The experience I gained during my PhD will certainly help me in that role.”
Jonathan Spoor will defend his thesis on January 14.
Research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute is financially supported by KWF Dutch Cancer Society and the AVL Foundation.
Floor van Leeuwen, Eveline Bleiker en Marie-Jeanne Vrancken Peeters
Marc Mureau