Regular scans or not?

Hi there,

I have a question about having scans after your BA. I
had my operation just over 2 years ago and I was wondering what your
view was about having regular scans to detect if there are any ruptures.
Do you advice your patients to have a potential CT,MRI etc scan every
couple of years to check the state of your implants or to leave it
longer?

Thank you,

Georgie.

Hi Georgie

I use cohesive Gel implants and currently dont advise regular scans of any sort - I dont think we have a 100% reliable pick up of rupture with scans, and with high cohesive Gel implants the amount of Gel leakage is tiny if an implant ruptures - hopefully enough to cause a change in the breast that alerts the owner, but often not. My worry with regular scans of trouble free implants is that we will see false positive results, and operations will be done needlessly to an intact implant. I undertand that the current PIP scare has made everyone a bit jumpy about implants, but remember that we have data on medical grade silicone Gel from 1970s to date and it seems very safe. As long as you have a good implant that is not changing in any way I would continue your monthly self examination and visit your surgeon if anything changes - they will examine you and give further advice - I hope that helps.

Studies on implant surveillance with scans are currently underway and further accurate advice may be available when we have the results of these.



JP

Hi John,

Thank you very much for your response back. I appreciate your opinion on the issue. I know it can be very difficult to detect ruptures with scans we have, for now I shall keep checking mine regularly.

Many Thanks,
Georgie.