Survivors bring battle to tampa for cancer linked to breast implants

TAMPA – After her breastfeeding triplet, Lisa Medren wanted her to look at her body like she had before pregnancy.

She saw a cosmetic surgeon about getting breast implants, and he recommended implants. He never mentioned the risk, she said.

In January, about 20 years after her surgery, Medren realized that one breast was swollen and “slossy.”

The mammogram revealed almost two inches of liquid on her breasts. The biopsy confirmed that lymphoma, a type of cancer, was present in scar tissue that forms around the implant.

Medren, who lives in St. Petersburg, underwent surgery in February to remove implants and scar tissue. She later learned that at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, a model of implants was recalled in 2019, as it is higher than the usual incidence of cancer.

“It was very scary,” she said. “There’s a woman who’s recurring so I’m still afraid I can come back.”

Undifferentiated large cell lymphoma, or Medlen cancer, known as BIA-ALCL, is a rare but known risk of breast augmentation surgery, especially with implants with textured surfaces. The 59-year-old Clearwater woman was one of the 12 survivors of cancer who gathered in Tampa to sought a ban on all similar implants and gathered in Tampa to get better informed of the risks of surgery.

The gatherings in Tampa attracted women like they did in Europe. It was organized by the Breast Implant Safety Alliance, a nonprofit group consisting primarily of survivors. The group wanted more pressure to be put on by plastic surgeons and oncologists who attended the Breast Implant Safety Conference in downtown Tampa.

The alliance hopes for more to raise awareness of cancer among medical professionals, so there is a lower risk of disease not being diagnosed. There are also concerns that many women who undergo breast enhancement surgery are unaware that the implant is more likely to be a lifelong device and require additional surgery depending on the age of the implant, said Jennifer Cook, the alliance’s advocacy director.

Cook noticed a lump in his chest in 2016, six years after taking the implants. Both her plastic surgeon and radiologist told her it was scar tissue and there was nothing to worry about, she said.

Some of the doctors she saw had never heard of that type of cancer and had to fight to get approval for a biopsy, she said. It took her about a year for her to be diagnosed. She needed surgery and chemotherapy to avoid cancer.

“This is why I am so conscious because I want women to give a chance,” Cook said. “If they don’t recognize these symptoms and the doctor doesn’t know that it exists, they can miss it and let it progress.”

According to the Cleveland Clinic, more than 300,000 breast augmentation surgeries are performed in the United States each year.

Manufacturers have begun using textured implants as a way to prevent implants from moving and reduce the risk of capsule contractures. This is a complication in which body scar tissue is formed too strongly around the implant, causing discomfort and false breasts.

In 2011, the Food and Drug Administration first reported a link between textured implants and cancer, which are different from breast cancer.

Eight years later, the federal agency requested that Allergan be recall a specific model of textured implants, which it found to be used in 481 of the 573 cases recorded at the time. The implant was used in 12 of 13 linked deaths.

Currently, there are over 1,700 cancer cases related to breast implants around the world, and the majority of breasts recorded over the past few years are Dr. Mark Clemens, a professor of plastic surgery and vice president of the University of Texas Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Large, undifferentiated cell lymphoma is more like blood cancer than tumors, Clemens said. Diagnosis can be made by using a needle to extract the liquid. If it is positive, a CT scan is performed to determine if the cancer is spreading.

Clemens was one of the authors of a study that examined the results of 52 women with uncategorized large cell lymphoma treated at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas for five years. A quarter of the patients were treated early, and most were treated surgically. Several patients in stage IV had metastasis to the bone marrow, liver and intestine.

Clemens said there is currently a standardized method of diagnosing and treating lymphoma using recommendations for both plastic surgeons and pathologists. That knowledge is shared among major medical journals.

Clemens agrees that more should be done.

He was one of the contributors to the American Association of Plastic Surgeons’ White Paper, which recommended discontinuation of all textured implants.

He also hopes that new cases are required to be reported to the national profile register, so he can continue to learn more about cancer. Currently, reports are optional.

“Every case learns new things,” he said.

In 2021, the FDA requested that manufacturers include a patient decision checklist detailing the potential risks inherent to their implants. Additionally, manufacturers have banned the sale of implants to doctors and clinics unless the surgeon in writing proves that the checklist is being used as part of an informed outlet process prior to sale.

But that didn’t stop one of her patients, said Dr. Lauren Kuikendall, an assistant professor at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of South Florida.

Kuykendall, who is also the head of orthopedics at Tampa General Hospital, said he does not use textured implants unless in exceptional circumstances.

Surgeons, manufacturers and healthcare communities are spending their time and resources on how cancer begins and educating women about risks, she said.

However, during this time, technology continues to evolve. Last year, the FDA approved a nanotexture implant with a textured depth of just 4 microns. Human hair ranges from 50 to 70 microns.

“The checklist is based on old data,” says Kuykendall. “It’s a challenge when data is behind what we’re doing.”

The Safety Alliance was formed by a group of women who testified about cancer to the FDA. It also became a support group for women who discovered that they had implants.

Clearwater Beach mom Emily Haase found the group on Facebook after being diagnosed with cancer.

She got her implants in 2012 while living in California. She has finished breastfeeding her two children.

The plastic surgeon told her they were very safe, he said he would put them on his daughter. She recalls being told they never need to delete it.

In 2019, she noticed that she had a rash and one of her breasts was a little larger. Her doctor told her it was probably shingles. He didn’t ask if she had implants.

In 2021, she decided to replace the implant with something smooth because of the discomfort she was feeling. The plastic surgeon found a black mass around her old implant and removed it. A biopsy confirmed it was cancer.

She believes her plastic surgeon saved her life.

Haase’s anxiety about the diagnosis led her to meet a therapist. The therapist also decided to remove the implant.

February was marked three years without cancer. Haase still needs to use mammograms and MRI once a year. It is important that there is more accurate information about implant risks available to women, she said.

“I don’t think breast implants are bad. I don’t think plastic surgeons are bad,” she said. “If you have textures, if you can help people like that, then you should consider bringing them out.”