Medical Specialist Care Utilization Prior to the Explantation of Cosmetic Silicone Breast Implants: A Nationwide Retrospective Data Linkage Study.

BACKGROUND: Explantation is the proposed treatment for breast implant illness (BII). Little is known about which medical specialists are visited and what diagnoses are made before explantation is provided as the treatment. OBJECTIVES: This study investigated medical specialist care utilization in women with cosmetic breast implants who underwent explantation compared to women who chose breast implant replacement surgery and to women without breast implants. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study using data linkage with the Dutch Breast Implant Registry and the Dutch health insurance claims database. Visits to medical specialists were examined over the 3 years before explantation. A total of 832 explantation patients were matched and compared to 1463 breast implant replacement patients and 1664 women without breast implants. RESULTS: Explantation patients were more likely to have visited > 5 different medical specialties compared to both replacement patients (12.3% vs. 5.7%; p < 0.001) and women without breast implants (12.3% vs. 3.7%; p < 0.001). Among explantation patients, women who underwent explantation because of BII were more likely to have visited > 5 different medical specialties compared to women who underwent explantation because of other reasons (25.0% vs. 11.0%; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Women who underwent explantation of breast implants had higher utilization of medical specialist care in the years before explantation compared to women who underwent breast implant replacement surgery and women without breast implants. Medical specialist care use was especially high among women for whom BII was the registered reason for explantation. These findings suggest further research is needed into the link between BII and the use of medical specialist care. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE III: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

Prevalence of Local Postoperative Complications and Breast Implant Illness in Women With Breast Implants.

Importance: It is unknown how often breast implant illness (BII) is the indication for revision in women with silicone breast implants. Objective: To examine how often women with silicone breast implants have their implants explanted or replaced because of BII compared with local postoperative complications. Design, Setting, and Participants: A legacy cohort study on breast implant revision surgery was conducted between April 1, 2015, and December 31, 2020, and a prospective cohort study on breast implantation and revision surgery was conducted between April 1, 2015, and December 31, 2019 (with follow-up until December 31, 2020). Data were obtained from the Dutch Breast Implant Registry. Data analysis was performed from September 2021 to August 2022. Exposures: Silicone breast implant. Main Outcomes and Measures: Breast implant revision with the indication BII or local postoperative complications. Results: All 12 882 cosmetic breast implants (6667 women; mean [SD] age, 50.6 [12.7] years) and 2945 reconstructive breast implants (2139 women, mean [SD] age, 57.9 [11.3] years) in the legacy cohort and all 47 564 cosmetic breast implants (24 120 women, mean [SD] age, 32.3 [9.7] years) and 5928 reconstructive breast implants (4688 women, mean [SD] age, 50.9 [11.5] years) in the prospective cohort were included for analysis. In the prospective cohort, 739 cosmetic breast implants (1.6%) were revised after a median (IQR) time to reoperation of 1.8 (0.9-3.1) years, and 697 reconstructive breast implants (11.8%) were revised after a median (IQR) time to reoperation of 1.1 (0.5-1.9) years. BII was registered as the reason for revision in 35 cosmetic revisions (4.7%) and 5 reconstructive revisions (0.7%) in the prospective cohort, corresponding to 0.1% of the inserted implants. In the legacy cohort, 536 cosmetic revisions (4.2%) and 80 reconstructive breast implant revisions (2.7%) were performed because of BII. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study of women with silicone breast implants, BII was an uncommon indication for revision compared with local complications, both in the short and long term. In contrast to the increasing public interest in BII, these results showed that local complications are a far more common reason for breast implant revision.