A long- running study has found that while women with breast implants are not at increased risk for most cancers, they appear to suffer higher rates of lung and brain cancer than other plastic surgery patients, researchers at the National Cancer Institute said today. The study demonstrated only a link between implants and the two types of cancer, not a cause-and- effect relationship, and its significance is unclear, said the lead author, Dr. Louise A. Brinton, chief of the cancer institute’s environmental epidemiology branch. “What the study showed is no difference for most of the cancer sites, which I think is good news,” Dr. Brinton said. “And for the few sites which we did find differences, we have no ready explanation. So I would not want to alarm women on the basis of one study.” Nonetheless, the results are likely to inflame the debate over the safety of breast implants. “I see this as a warning,” said Dr. Diana Zuckerman, director of the National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families, who served on the study’s scientific advisory panel.
“You can’t draw a conclusion from these studies, even though they are very well designed, very solid,” said Dr. Zuckerman, who nonetheless added, “I think this is very alarming.” Dr. Brinton’s group identified nearly 13,500 women who received breast implants before 1989 and followed them for an average of 13 years. The women were compared with a control group of 4,000 other plastic surgery patients and with the general population. The study results, which focused on a comparison between the breast implant patients and the plastic surgery control group, were based on questionnaires completed by 7,500 of the women, as well as medical records and, in some cases, death certificates. The women’s average age when they received their implants was 34, and all had implants for at least eight years. Most had silicone implants, which the Food and Drug Administration removed from the market in 1992; about 10 percent had saline implants.
The researchers found that the type of implant made no difference in a woman’s cancer risk. Results from the study appear this month in two medical journals: Epidemiology, and Annals of Epidemiology. It found that women in the implant group were three times as likely to die of diseases of the respiratory tract, primarily lung cancer, as the women in the plastic surgery control group, and twice as likely to die of brain cancer. A separate analysis of the number of malignancies, as opposed to deaths, also found higher rates of lung and brain cancer in women with implants. Previous research has suggested that women with implants may be at increased risk for lung problems, and some experts have theorized that silicone gel, which coats even the saline implants, migrates to the lung. But Dr. Brinton said she could not rule out smoking as a factor. In her study, the implant patients and the women who had had other plastic surgery reported the same rates of smoking. But most of the lung cancer information was gleaned from death certificates, so it was impossible for researchers to know whether those women smoked. “We couldn’t fully account for smoking differences,” Dr. Brinton said. As to the brain cancer finding, she said, researchers do not have a plausible explanation for it, and so further research is necessary.
Giving infants oranges and bananas regularly may halve their risk of developing childhood leukaemia, suggest the results of a new study. And a diet containing the curry spice turmeric may also be protective – accounting for the differences in childhood leukaemia rates between east and west – says a leading scientist.
Smoking cigarettes cuts an average of 10 years off a person’s life, a landmark study suggests. But it also shows that quitting at any age reduces the risks of dying from smoking-related diseases. The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, are the culmination of a 50-year study involving 34,439 men. The study, which began in 1951, was the first to confirm the link between smoking and lung cancer exactly 50 years ago. All of those involved in the study were born between 1900 and 1930 and all worked as doctors.
Studies dating from the early 1970s have consistently shown that children and infants exposed to ETS in the home have significantly elevated rates of respiratory symptoms and respiratory tract infections. More than 50 recently published studies confirm these previous conclusions: ETS exposure due to parental smoking, especially the mother’s, contributes to 150,000 to 300,000 cases annually of lower respiratory tract infection (pneumonia, bronchitis, and other infections) in infants and children under 18 months of age; 7,500 to 15,000 of these cases require hospitalization. ETS exposure is associated with increased respiratory irritation (cough, phlegm production, and wheezing) and middle ear infections, as well as upper respiratory tract symptoms (sore throats and colds) in infants and children.
Researchers working in England claim to have found the cause of cancer. Whether they actually have or not remains to be seen, but they say it is caused by a virus (honest.. that’s what they said!). They also claim that because of it’s virul foundations, they should be able to develope a vaccine to protect against the condition. If they are correct, then they have probably made one of the biggest medical breakthroughs in years, and it is extremely good news for those who do not have cancer and wish to avoid contracting it. It would be, however, extremely bad news for those who are of the mistaken belief that smoking causes cancer, as they would have to totally rethink their outlook on life, and the discrimination they are being allowed to display to smokers.
Newborns whose mothers smoke during pregnancy have the same nicotine level as grown-up smokers and almost certainly spend their first days of life going through withdrawal, a new study finds. “The baby of a smoking mother should be considered to be an ex-smoker,” said Dr. Claude Hanet of St. Luc University Hospital in Brussels. The study, conducted principally by Dr. Laurence M. Galanti of Mont-Godinne University Hospital in Namur, Belgium, was presented Wednesday at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology. In the United States, smoking during pregnancy is on the decline. But the latest data show that 15 percent of women still use cigarettes while pregnant. Exposure to tobacco in the womb stunts fetal growth so babies are born small.