MEF000024038/1118

Letter published in an unidentified medical journal.  Page 314/Correspondence and Brief Communications  1984

Inflammation and Silicone Prostheses

Sir:

“We cannot imagine inflammation to take place without an irritating stimulus (irritament)” (Virchow, Cellular Pathology, 1839).

“Inflammation is a destructive and sometimes a formative process.  The treatment is withdrawal of the cause” (Tanner and Broadbent, Index of Diseases, 1882).

Many plastic surgeons (myself included) have become mesmerized by the good results we usually obtain with the augmentation mammaplasty.  Thousands of patients have been helped by this operation.  Because of these successes, we have been less than objective in our evaluation of the body’s reaction to silicone gel.  We continue to alter, modify, make thinner, make softer, drain, add steroids, add antibiotic solutions, rupture, hide under muscle, and, in general, avoid a confrontation with the fact that we are inserting a foreign and reactive material into the human body.  The inflammatory reaction to foreign implants is not new.  The body has in the past reacted and will continue to react to an intrusion of foreign material.  The reaction is not new, but perhaps the longer time period for the full evolution of this particular inflammatory process is new.

We have a problem—the inflammatory response to the silicone gel implant.  Let us objectively review our results, report unfavorable ones, and not be mesmerized by our many successes.

William M. Cocke, Jr., M.D.

1737 Briarcrest Drive

Suite 18

Bryan, Texas 77802