A New Function of Silicone Breast Implant was Found by Scientists

Posted by Alex Brown on December 16th, 2015

Kim Anderson, a professor from Oregon State University, found a new application of removed silicone breast implants with her colleagues. From the studies they carried out[1], it’s showed that silicone could absorb bad chemicals from fatty tissues and then the discarded silicone may be used for some related researches to determine the harmful chemicals in the environment and their existing amount in human bodies.

The study was inspired by recent researches[2] result that silicone implant might decrease the risk of breast cancer by a degree as high as 50%. To probe more about its function as contaminants absorber, this study was set out.

The research team inspected eight silicone implants used for different aims and found hundreds types of chemicals. And then from the chemicals they discovered 14 chemicals existing much more commonly in these samples, among which caffeine were found in all samples and then p,p’-DDE, a derivation of DDT, a long banned insecticide, ranked secondly by existing in five samples. The rest chemicals were only found in one of the samples, which showed individual difference because of their living surroundings.

To furtherly determine the chemical absorbing ability of silicone, the team conducted an experiment on mice. They injected two compounds p,p’-DDE and PCB 118 into two groups of mice. One group was implanted with a certain amount of silicone according to their body mass and the other group was implanted nothing. Besides, there was a third group that was also implanted with silicone but got nothing injected for comparison.

After a period of nine days the implants were removed out from the mice bodies and got inspected. The two chemicals were found in all silicone implants, as well as the surrounding fatty tissues. From the result, scientists saw the possibility of making the silicone breast implants as a measure tool to get more information about the chemicals in environment with negative effect.

With more effort, the residue in the implants can be a miniature presentation of chemicals in the environment and food, and then it will be of great significance in a long term investigation of related changes. Besides, once the idea becomes true, a better use of the discarded silicone implants as a rich source to check harmful chemical in the environment will be available rather than just burning them as waste.

The paper was published in the Journal Environment International titled as In vivo contaminant partitioning to silicone implants: Implications for use in biomonitoring and body burden published on 16^th, September, 2015 with the doi number being 10.1016/j.envint.2015.09.016.

[1] The study focused on the chemicals that silicone breast implants absorbed in the body and more related information about the study was listed at the end of this article.

[2] A great number of related studies can be seen in this research table- Breast implants and breast cancer risk at 5.komen.org updated on 05/11/15.