Cancer with Breast Implants

Many people wonder if the silicon breast implants hinder women from detecting cancerous lumps in the breasts. A large concern is whether doctors can find the lumps because if they can't then the chance for women to detect them are even slimmer. According to the article "Physicians' Abilities to Detect Lumps in Silicone Breast Models.", the detection rate is somewhat startling. On average, the mean number of lumps detected were eight (44%) by the physician. However, in the study, doctors findings ranged from three (17%) to 15 (83%). The amount found varied greatly depending on the size: 87% of 1.0-cm and 14% of 0.3-cm lumps were detected. The detection of the lump also greatly varied amongst the hardness: 56% of hard and 40% of soft lumps were detected. The depth of the lump within the breast did not seem to affect the finding of lumps. Doctors such as Gynecologists and Obstetricians who specialize in women care had a slightly higher detection rate than general internists and practitioners; however, the length of their experience did not seem to affect the amount of lumps these medical professionals detected. On multiple occasions, only search duration was consistently connected to an increase in detection. The findings in this experiment demonstrate that there are in fact ways to increase a doctor and even a patients chance to detect breast lumps. With a longer search duration and better techniques, there is hope that an increase will occur in the amount of cancerous lumps that are found in a woman with breast implants.

Works Cited:
Fletcher, S. W., M. S. O'Malley, and L. A. Bunce. "Physicians' Abilities to Detect Lumps in Silicone Breast Models." Diss. Abstract. Pubmed.gov. National Center of Biotechnology. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. .