Check-ups urged for Mexicans with flawed implants
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican women with breast implants made by a French company behind a global health scare should be examined by a doctor, Mexico's plastic surgeons said on Wednesday.
About 4,500 Mexican women received implants made by the now-defunct company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), according to a survey of the 1,200 members of the Mexican Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Association.
Mexican health officials have received no reports of serious problems with the suspect implants but it would be prudent for women who have the implants to get them checked for faults, said association president Alejandro Duarte.
"This is not cause for panic," he told reporters at a news conference.
PIP, once the third-largest maker of breast implants in the world, is accused of using industrial-grade instead of medical-grade silicone in some of its implants. They were sold in a number of European and Latin America countries.
The French government in December advised 30,000 women who had PIP implants to have them removed following the death from cancer in 2010 of a French woman who had the implants.
PIP products were sold in Mexico by two distributors from 1994 to 2010, when Mexican regulators suspended their sale.
"These people had no scruples and sold two-for-one," said association treasurer Alfonso Vallarta, who heads a campaign for safe plastic surgery, adding that the wholesale price of PIP implants at $450 a pair was about half that of rival products.
Most of the reported PIP implant surgeries took place in central Mexico, including the states of Guanajuato and Queretaro.
Health authorities have said there is no evidence of an increased cancer risk due to the PIP implants, but that they have higher rates of rupture that could cause inflammation and irritation.
