Risk of connective tissue disease among women with breast implants

BMJ 1998;317:470 ( 15 August )

Letters

Risk of connective tissue disease among women with breast implants

Study adds nothing to knowledge of processes of tissue injury induced by silicone

Authors should have made better use of matched control group

Authors' reply

Study adds nothing to knowledge of processes of tissue injury induced by silicone

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ In a study that was five years old at publication Nyrén et al claim to show "no evidence of association between breastimplants and connective tissue disease," using classical rheumaticdiseases as end points.¹ This report is less comprehensivethan that by Gabriel et al, although comparable in scope and shortcomingsof definitions.² It lacks data on rupture (the prevalence riseswith time³); rupture enhances the reaction to gel filled devices.⁴Gabriel et al estimated the minimum population necessary for riskassessment to be 62 000 subjects with implants and 124 000 controls.²

Table 3 is confusing because the observed numbers of cases are compared with the expected numbers, derived from the standardisedhospitalisation ratios. The data can mean only that in Swedenthe rate of admission to hospital for rheumatic disease is thesame whether a patient has silicone implants or not. Few patientsgo to hospital for rheumatic . . . [Full text of this article]

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Risk of connective tissue disease and related disorders among women with breast implants: a nation-wide retrospective cohort study in Sweden: Olof Nyrén, Li Yin, Staffan Josefsson, Joseph K McLaughlin, William J Blot, Martin Engqvist, Lars Hakelius, John D Boice Jr, and Hans-Olov Adami
BMJ 1998 316: 417-422. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]