Tag Archives: side effects

After Mastectomies, an Unexpected Blow: Numb New Breasts

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Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times: January 29, 2017.

After learning she had a high genetic risk for breast cancer, Dane’e McCree, like a growing number of women, decided to have her breasts removed. Her doctor assured her that reconstructive surgery would spare her nipples and leave her with natural-looking breasts.

It did. But while Ms. McCree’s rebuilt chest may resemble natural breasts, it is now completely numb. Her nipples lack any feeling. She cannot sense the slightest touch of her breasts, perceive warmth or cold, feel an itch if she has a rash or pain if she bangs into a door.

And no one warned her.

“I can’t even feel it when my kids hug me,” said Ms. McCree, 31, a store manager in Grand Junction, Colo., who is raising two daughters on her own.

Plastic surgeons performed more than 106,000 breast reconstructions in 2015, up 35 percent from 2000. And they have embraced cutting-edge techniques to improve the appearance of reconstructed breasts and give them a more natural “look and feel” — using a woman’s belly fat to create the new breast, sparing the nipple, minimizing scarring with creative incisions and offering enhancements like larger, firmer lifted breasts.

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FDA Panel Backs Breast Implants From One Maker

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Gardiner Harris, The New York Times: April 14, 2005.

Silicone breast implants made by a California company should be available to women who undergo cosmetic breast surgery, a federal advisory panel voted on Wednesday, rejecting arguments about serious health problems.

The panel chairman called the 7-to-2 vote to approve an application by the company, the Mentor Corporation, unexpected.

On Tuesday, the panel voted, 5 to 4, to reject a similar application from the Inamed Corporation. […]

The three-day hearing on implants began on Monday and included more than 160 witnesses who gave impassioned pleas to approve or reject silicone implants.

Dozens of women said implants had sickened them severely, and some gave gruesome testimony about silicone from ruptured implants squeezing out of their eyes and ears. […]

At the moment, just saline implants are allowed for purely cosmetic operations, even though many patients and doctors say silicone implants feel more natural and look better. Several panel members said they had voted to approved the implants because Mentor made a more convincing presentation than Inamed. […]

Inamed and women’s groups complained about the votes.

“I’m stunned and amazed by a bizarre and strange decision by a few panel members who yesterday demanded longer-term safety data and today accepted shorter-term data,” a vice president of Inamed, Dan Cohen, said.

Dr. Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Health Research, called the conflicting votes illogical and predicted that the drug agency would reject both applications.

[…]

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