Fortunately for you, no medical device has gone through the scrutiny that breast implants have gone through. For good reason too, this is cosmetic surgery not life saving surgery.

In fact in 1992 the American FDA put a moratorium out against the use of silicone breast implants until their safety was undeniably proven.

This took the Americans over a decade to prove.

In 1998 the Europeans, through the European committee on quality assurance and medical devices (EQUAM) declared that there was no linkage between implants and cancer or systemic diseases.

I have scoured scientific literature and it is reassuring that the published data suggests that breast implants:
  • Don't increase your chance of getting breast cancer (in fact woman with implants have a lower rate of breast cancer…No implants don't protect you against cancer! it is thought the lower rates of cancer are due to women getting implants having less breast tissue to develop cancer than the general female population.)
  • Don't increase the likelihood of suffering from systemic diseases such as rheumatoid
  • Don't interfere with breast cancer detection
  • Don't affect the ability to breast feed
  • Don't affect your pregnancy or the health of your breast fed child
Can I predict how long an implant will last? Not really. All medical devices, whether they are breast implants or joint replacements, have a use by date. The best estimates are about 10-15 years before you need a change of implant. What I can say, is that I only use the top 2 implant companies. They are a little more expensive than the 2nd tier implants but I am more confident in their safety profile because they have been on the market for decades. Here is the 6 year implant rupture data from both Mentor and Allergan: Primary Augmentation:
    • Mentor: 2.1% rupture rate
    • Allergan: 2.4% rupture rate
Primary Reconstruction:
  • Mentor: 1.5% rupture rate
  • Allergan: 3.0% rupture rate
I hope this helps, Dr. Moradi.