Dec
Women who have cosmetic breast implant surgery are three times more likely to commit suicide compared with women in the general population, suggests a new study of women in Sweden. The researchers said that surgeons must perform before surgery mental health screening and follow-up monitoring of patients receiving cosmetic breast implants.
The research is published in the August issue of the Annals of Plastic Surgery and was led by Dr. Loren Lipworth of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee, both in the U.S. . UU ..
Other studies have also reported rates of suicide among women with cosmetic breast implants. In this study Lipworth and colleagues did a more detailed long term follow up of an earlier study of a national sample of 3527 women in Sweden who had cosmetic breast implant surgery between 1965 and 1993.
Using data from death certificates and Swedish national health registers, they compared the number and causes of deaths among cosmetic breast implant cohort with the number expected among the same age group in the general Swedish female population.
Mean follow-up after surgery was 18.7 years (range was 0.1 RO 37.8 years). The results showed that:
* There were 175 deaths overall among women with breast implants compared with an expected 133.4 (standardized mortality ratio (SMR) was 1.3).
* Among women with implants there was a statistically significant three-fold higher rate of suicide (SMR 3.0, based on 24 deaths among implant recipients).
* The risk was almost seven times higher for women who received their breast implants when they were 45 years or more. (The average age at breast implant surgery was 32.)
* There was a similar increase in deaths from alcohol dependence or drugs in this group (SMR 3.1) which also showed an excess of deaths from accidents and injuries consistent with dependence and abuse.
* The risk of suicide was not apparent until 10 years after implantation surgery.
* After 10 years, however, suicide risk increased with time since surgery. Suicide risk was 4.5 times higher between 10 and 19 years later, and 6 times higher after 20 years.
* The death rate from breast cancer was higher among implant group compared with the general population.
* The overall cancer deaths were also close to expectation (SMR 1.1).
* The implant group indicated, however a high risk of death from lung cancer and chronic respiratory diseases.
Lipworth and colleagues wrote that “At least 38 deaths (22 per cent of all deaths) in this implant cohort were associated with suicide, psychological disorders and / or drug abuse / alcohol dependence.
The researchers concluded that:
“The excess deaths from suicides, drug and alcohol abuse and dependence, and other related causes suggests significant underlying psychiatric morbidity among these women.”
The increased mortality from these causes suggests that a “nontrivial proportion of women” who have breast augmentation surgery may already have, or develop later, long-term serious psychiatric problems, researchers said. Moreover, because only examined deaths, it is likely that the incidence of psychiatric disorders among women with cosmetic breast implants is much higher than the general population.
“These findings warrant increased screening, counseling, and perhaps postimplant monitoring of women seeking cosmetic breast implants,” suggested Lipworth and colleagues.
Breast implants are not a one-SIZE-fits-all or even one-TYPE-fits all proposition. Read my blog and learn a variety of breast implant choices regarding size, profile, silicone vs saline, and more. Let me show you what's in the new world of implants so that you and your surgeon can make the right choice for your body type, image, goals and lifestyle.