Comments on total platinum concentration and platinum oxidation states in body fluids, tissue, and explants from women exposed to silicone and saline breast implants by IC-ICPMS.

ABSTRACT

The paper by Lykissa and Maharaj (Lykissa, E. D.; Maharaj, S. V. M Anal. Chem. 2006, 78, 2925-2933) purports to provide evidence that the urine of women with silicone breast implants contain 60 to over 1700 times more platinum in their urine that the urine of people with no known exposure to platinum. Further, they purport to show evidence that the platinum used in the manufacture of breast implants (Pt0) is converted by a unknown process to yield highly oxidized platinum species, stable in biological matrixes, up to and including Pt6+. This correspondence poses three questions associated with the work and directs the reader's attention to the data, which clearly show that the blood and urine platinum levels in implanted women and their healthy control group were not significantly different from one another.