PIP implants: surgeon calls for further inquiry - Isle of Man News - Isle of Man Today

A Douglas consultant plastic surgeon is calling on the UK Government to carry out further investigations into PIP breast implants.

It comes after the Swedish Medical Products Agency last week ordered women with the implants to have them removed as a preventative measure.
It reported that one of the types of implant contained an irritant substance, resulting in tissue inflammation in about one third of cases.  The French breast implants caused a health scare across Europe and South America last year.
A UK report in June 2012 found the PIP implants, made with unauthorised silicone filler, had double the rupture rate of other implants.  The company that made the implants is facing legal action in France.  Kevin Hancock, who is a council member of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), said: ‘As a surgeon who has witnessed first-hand the devastating effects of the PIP implant scandal, I have been campaigning for many months for more rigorous testing to be done on the long-term effects of these products – especially as so many women are still living with them inside their bodies.
‘In light of the new evidence to come out of Sweden, I’m hoping this will urge [UK] Government ministers to carry out further investigations into the faulty devices.  ‘The reality is that these implants are simply not suited to the human body.’ About 300,000 women in 65 countries are believed to have received PIP implants.  Europe was a major market, but more than half went to South America.  It is thought that about 47,000 British women had the implants.
Private clinics fitted 95 per cent of the implants, mostly for breast reconstruction following cancer. The remainder were performed by the NHS.
In the UK, a review by NHS medical director professor Sir Bruce Keogh said: ‘On the basis of the information we have, we do not think it is necessary to recommend the routine removal of these implants.’ But it highlighted that anxiety about the implants was itself a health concern and women should be able to have them removed if they wanted to.
    BAAPS president Rajiv Grover said: ‘It is known that there is a subgroup of PIP implants in which the concentration of an irritant compound (known as D4) is higher than in others, but there is no way of knowing which ones are affected. This is why the Swedish government has made the decision to remove all PIPs as a preventative measure.’ Mr Hancock consults and operates at Noble’s Hospital’s Private Patients Unit and in UK hospitals.