[Edaily] 'Breast Implants Increase Risk of Rare Cancer, Caution'... Stem Cell Breast Augmentation Helps

[Edaily] 'Breast Implants Increase Risk of Rare Cancer, Caution'... Stem Cell Breast Augmentation Helps

[Edaily Reporter Lee Soon-yong] As slim and voluptuous figures become a general preference across society, an increasing number of ordinary people are undergoing breast augmentation surgery to overcome their complex about having small breasts. However, along with the rising demand for breast surgery, medical accidents and side effects are also on the rise. If you are planning surgery, it is important to check safety, potential side effects, and the medical team before deciding whether to proceed.

Recently, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) pointed out that women who have had breast implants are at a higher risk of developing Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL), a rare cancer, compared to women in the general population. This cancer attacks lymph nodes and skin and is known to frequently occur in scar tissue, which is the scar tissue that grows around the site where the implants were inserted.

​

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also previously released data related to this. The FDA received 258 reports of rare cancer cases related to breast implants between August 2010 and September 2015. There have been 3 deaths from ALCL in the United States since 2007.

In light of this, some women considering breast augmentation are turning their attention to "stem cell breast augmentation," which injects their own fat tissue and pure stem cells into the breasts instead of implants to naturally restore volume. This procedure is an upgraded version of autologous fat grafting, which removes unnecessary body fat and separates and purifies it to enhance breast volume. It boasts high patient satisfaction as it raises the engraftment survival rate—a common issue with traditional fat grafting—to the 70% range through the use of fat-derived stem cells.

Shin Dong-jin, the representative director of SC301 Clinic, pointed out, “Women who are highly concerned about side effects such as cancer caused by implants and capsular contracture (hardening of the tissue surrounding the implant) prefer stem cell breast augmentation.” He added, “As a result, the demand for stem cell procedures is rising, and caution is needed because unscrupulous doctors who view this merely as a way to ‘make money’ are recklessly performing surgeries without proper equipment or surgical skills.” For instance, he criticized, “Many hospitals do not possess proper medical equipment costing over 1 to 3 million won, and there are many cases where they lure patients without clinical experience, having not even mastered the surgical skills that require years of effort to acquire.” 

The most important raw materials in stem cell breast augmentation are fat and stem cells. To achieve the desired results with stem cell breast augmentation, it is essential to be able to harvest the materials required for transplantation in a single, rapid manner without damage. To properly purify these materials, one must be equipped with a genuine stem cell extractor, and a cell counter must be used to verify that an appropriate number of healthy stem cells have been injected into the desired area.

Director Shin explained, “If a doctor claims to complete stem cell breast augmentation in just a few tens of minutes, you should be suspicious.” He added, “It takes about two hours to suction unnecessary fat from areas like the abdomen, about an hour and a half to extract stem cells from the suctioned fat, and about ten minutes to inject these cells into the breasts, so it takes at least three hours.” He further noted, “Given these circumstances, it is unreasonable to perform more than two stem cell surgeries a day. Because excessive dieting often results in insufficient fat in the abdomen or thighs alone for the absolute amount required for the procedure, the trend these days is that even just extracting fat cells takes a considerably long time.”

Systematic post-operative care regarding the results before and after surgery is also important. If this is neglected, side effects such as calcification caused by excessive fat injection or necrosis of the transplanted cells are bound to occur.