SILICONE BREAST-IMPLANT RISK SMALL, STUDY FINDS.Byline: The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times The largest study by far of silicone breast implants Breast Implants Definition Breast implantation is a surgical procedure for enlarging the breast. Breast-shaped sacks made of a silicone outer shell and filled with silicone gel or saline (salt water), called implants, are used. and disease shows that if implants pose any health risk at all, it is a very small one. The long-awaited study, however, is already being used by both sides in the bitter controversy over breast implants, with lawyers for women with implants saying it proves the devices are dangerous and implant makers saying it proves they are safe. The study, directed by Dr. Charles Hennekens, a leading epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a hospital in the Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill. With Massachusetts General Hospital, it is one of the two founding members of Partners HealthCare. in Boston, analyzes reports by more than 400,000 women working in health professions, many of them in nursing. It found that women with implants were 24 percent more likely to report that they had connective-tissue diseases than those without implants. The researchers asked about diseases diagnosed between 1962 and 1991, before the implant litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. had become a juggernaut. But the study's authors and independent scientists emphasize that the data do not permit them to distinguish reliably between a small risk and no risk. The study did not find that the risk of disease was proportional to the length of time a woman had an implant, which puts the significance of the risk estimate in question, some said. And even if the risk is real, the authors calculate that it would mean only one extra case of connective-tissue disease, like arthritis or lupus lupus (l  `pəs), noninfectious chronic disease in which antibodies in an individual's immune system attack the body's own substances. , a year for every 3,000 women with implants. About 1 million women have the devices. Hennekens said that, by contrast, cigarette smoking increased the risk of lung cancer lung cancer, cancer that originates in the tissues of the lungs. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States in both men and women. Like other cancers, lung cancer occurs after repeated insults to the genetic material of the cell. by 2,000 percent. When he began his study, he added, lawyers representing women with implants were saying that the devices increased the risk of connective-tissue diseases by 500 percent. Now, he said, "We've narrowed the risk to somewhere between 0 and 24 percent." "Our study's great contribution is to show that the idea that women with implants had a large hazard of connective-tissue disease is not plausible," Hennekens said. The study was published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, published 48 times per year by the American Medical Association. JAMA is the most widely circulated medical journal in the world. . |
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