While the ANSM awaits the opinion of a committee of experts on textured breast implants, accused of causing cancer, the specialist Rémy Salmon wishes to reassure women with breast cancer.
“Textured breast prostheses give cancer”. This is what we hear everywhere for a few months. “It does not give breast cancer”, assures us Remy Salmon, surgeon and oncologist in the show fake news. “This gives a disease which is a lymphoma, a lymphocyte disease”, explains the oncologist. At present, 518 cases of women who developed anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) while wearing so-called “textured” breast implants, whose granular surface was designed to better adhere to the tissues, have been reported. reported around the world. In France, 56 cases have been identified since 2011. Despite everything, for Rémy Salmon, in the midst of the ambient psychosis, it is important to put things into perspective.
Because according to him, the panic around breast prostheses has lasted for more than thirty years. “Thirty years ago it was silicone: we said it gave autoimmune diseases. It’s not true but it forced women to have prostheses in serum, which did not give good aesthetic results. Then there was the scandal of the PIP prostheses, an embezzlement which required that we change all these prostheses”, recalls Dr. Salmon, who wants above all “to reassure women”.
“There are multiple techniques for reconstructing the breasts (…) including lipofilling, a technique that has exploded over the past five years: we take the woman’s fat and reinject it into the breast (…) we manage to rebuild breasts between B and C cups,” he explains. And to enthuse: “The results are excellent in shape and touch”. But the ideal, according to Dr. Salmon, is between an alliance between prosthesis and lipofilling.
“Be regularly monitored”
Thus, to conclude, the specialist does not recommend to patients who have suffered from breast cancer to abandon textured breast prostheses but to “be regularly monitored”. “When a lymphoma occurs, a flow is made at the level of the prosthesis, the breast becomes red, hot, painful and there we make the diagnosis”, he explains.
Today in France, breast cancer is the most diagnosed in women each year. Among those who have suffered, 500,000 currently wear breast implants in France. In addition, “textured implants, implicated in the occurrence of this rare cancer (anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), editor’s note), represent the majority of the French market: 85%, compared to 15% for envelope implants smooth”, according to Dr Maurice Mimoun, head of the plastic surgery department at the Saint-Louis hospital in Paris, interviewed by Le Figaro.
In mid-December, the Microcell and Biocell breast prostheses from the pharmaceutical company Allergan lost their CE marking (European conformity), as part of the renewal procedure which must take place every five years. Following which, the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) asked Allergan to recall its textured breast implants from all health establishments in France.
The ANSM will decide in a few weeks
Also, “pending the opinion of a committee of experts on the use in particular of breast implants with textured envelopes in aesthetic and reconstructive surgery”, specified the ANSM on its site, recommending that healthcare professionals use smooth shell breast implants if possible, untextured.
The committee, which will meet on February 7 and 8, must question patients, health professionals and other actors concerned by the case in order to “benefit from a global perspective on the use of breast implants”. Following which, the ANSM will be able to take a final decision on the use of textured breast implants. For the time being, the Agency considers that it has not “identified any immediate risk to the health of women with the implants concerned”. Remember, however, that women with implants must be followed annually.
.
