Cosmetic breast implants may adversely affect survival in women who develop breast cancer

But results should be interpreted with caution, say researchers

2013-05-01

(Press-News.org) The authors stress that these findings should be interpreted with caution as some studies did not adjust for other potential confounding factors. They call for further investigations into the long term health effects of breast implants.

Cosmetic breast implants have become increasingly popular, but some studies have suggested that implants can make it more difficult to detect breast cancer at an early stage because they create shadows on mammograms that can obscure some breast tissue.

A team of researchers based in Canada wanted to find out whether the stage at which breast cancer is diagnosed - and post-diagnosis survival - differed between women with and without cosmetic breast implants.

First they analysed the results of 12 observational studies, all published after 1993 and conducted mainly in the US, northern Europe and Canada. They found that women with cosmetic breast implants had a 26% increased risk of being diagnosed at a later stage of breast cancer than women without implants.

They then analysed the results of a further five studies and found that women with cosmetic breast implants had a 38% greater risk of death from breast cancer than women without implants.

However, the authors warn that these findings "should be interpreted with caution as some studies included in the meta-analysis on survival did not adjust for potential confounders."

They point to some study limitations, but say "the accumulating evidence suggests that women with cosmetic breast implants who develop breast cancer have an increased risk of being diagnosed as having non-localized breast tumors more frequently than do women with breast cancer who do not have implants."

Current evidence also suggests that cosmetic breast implants "adversely affect breast cancer specific survival following the diagnosis of such disease," they add.

"Further investigations are warranted into the long term effects of cosmetic breast implants on the detection and prognosis of breast cancer, adjusting for potential confounders," they conclude. ### END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Psychological trauma after miscarriage is more likely in women using assisted reproduction

2013-05-01

Subfertile women who conceive through assisted reproduction are more likely to experience a greater traumatic impact following early pregnancy loss compared with women who conceive naturally, suggests a new study published today (1 May) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Miscarriage is the most common complication of pregnancy affecting 20% of all clinically recognised pregnancies. This study, conducted at Queen Mary Hospital, The University of Hong Kong, aimed to identify the psychological impact following a first trimester miscarriage ...

Neon exposes hidden ALS cells

2013-05-01

CHICAGO --- A small group of elusive neurons in the brain's cortex play a big role in ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a swift and fatal neurodegenerative disease that paralyzes its victims. But the neurons have always been difficult to study because there are so few of them and they look so similar to other neurons in the cortex. In a new preclinical study, a Northwestern Medicine® scientist has isolated the motor neurons in the brain that die in ALS and, for the first time, dressed them in a green fluorescent jacket. Now they're impossible to miss and easy to ...

Bizarre bone worms emit acid to feast on whale skeletons

2013-05-01

Only within the past 12 years have marine biologists come to learn about the eye-opening characteristics of mystifying sea worms that live and thrive on the bones of whale carcasses. With each new study, scientists have developed a better grasp on the biology of Osedax, a genus of mouthless and gutless "bone worms" that make a living on skeletons lying on the seafloor. In the latest finding, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego describe how the wispy worms are able to carry out their bone-drilling activities. As published in the May 1 online ...

Study finds less-used regimen for treating children in Africa with HIV is more effective

2013-05-01

Philadelphia, April 30, 2013 — Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at The University of Pennsylvania, along with colleagues at the Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence, conducted the first large-scale comparison of first-line treatments for HIV-positive children, finding that initial treatment with efavirenz was more effective than nevirapine in suppressing the virus in children ages 3 to 16. However, the less effective nevirapine is currently used much more often in countries with a high prevalence ...

Researchers tackle collapsing bridges with new technology

2013-05-01

In this month's issue of Physics World, an international group of researchers propose a new technology that could divert vibrations away from load-bearing elements of bridges to avoid catastrophic collapses. Michele Brun, Alexander Movchan, Ian Jones and Ross McPhedran describe a "wave bypass" technique that has many similarities to those being used by researchers looking to create Harry Potter-style invisibility cloaks, which exploit man-made materials known as metamaterials to bend light around objects. Led by Movchan, who is at the University of Liverpool, the researchers ...

Behavior of seabirds during migration revealed

2013-05-01

The behaviour of seabirds during migration – including patterns of foraging, rest and flight – has been revealed in new detail using novel computational analyses and tracking technologies. Using a new method called 'ethoinformatics', described as the application of computational methods in the investigation of animal behaviour, scientists have been able to analyse three years of migration data gathered from miniature tracking devices attached to the small seabird the Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus). The Manx Shearwater is currently on the 'amber' list of UK Birds ...

Sleep duration associated with higher colorectal cancer risk

2013-05-01

A new study is the first to report a significant positive association between long sleep duration and the development of colorectal cancer, especially among individuals who are overweight or snore regularly. The results raise the possibility that obstructive sleep apnea may contribute to cancer risk. "Our current study adds to the very limited literature regarding the relationship between sleep duration and/or sleep quality and colorectal cancer risk," said lead author Xuehong Zhang, MD, ScD, instructor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate ...

Researchers pinpoint upper safe limit of vitamin D blood levels

2013-05-01

Chevy Chase, MD––Researchers claim to have calculated for the first time, the upper safe limit of vitamin D levels, above which the associated risk for cardiovascular events or death raises significantly, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). There is increasing evidence that vitamin D plays a pivotal role in human physiology. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to cardiovascular events and mortality, but previous studies have found supplementation fails to decrease mortality ...

Cell response to new coronavirus unveils possible paths to treatments

2013-05-01

WHAT: NIH-supported scientists used lab-grown human lung cells to study the cells' response to infection by a novel human coronavirus (called nCoV) and compiled information about which genes are significantly disrupted in early and late stages of infection. The information about host response to nCoV allowed the researchers to predict drugs that might be used to inhibit either the virus itself or the deleterious responses that host cells make in reaction to infection. Since nCoV was recognized in 2012, 17 confirmed cases and 11 deaths have been reported—a high fatality ...

In the Northeast, forests with entirely native flora are not the norm

2013-05-01

Two-thirds of all forest inventory plots in the Northeast and Midwestern United States contain at least one non-native plant species, a new U.S. Forest Service study found. The study across two dozen states from North Dakota to Maine can help land managers pinpoint areas on the landscape where invasive plants might take root. "We found two-thirds of more than 1,300 plots from our annual forest inventory had at least one introduced species, but this also means that one-third of the plots had no introduced species," said Beth Schulz, a research ecologist at the Pacific ...

Cosmetic breast implants may adversely affect survival in women who develop breast cancer

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: