The FDA is warning healthcare providers about a rare, potential risk for certain cancers in the scar tissue that grows around breast implants, according to a Sept. 8 safety alert.
Four things to know:
1. The agency has received several reports of patients being diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma and various lymphomas years after receiving breast implants.
"Right now, we do not have enough information to say whether breast implants cause these cancers or if some implants pose higher risk than others," Binita Ashar, MD, director of the Office of Surgical and Infection Control Devices in the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in the safety alert.
2. The agency is working with manufacturers, other regulatory authorities and health experts to study the potential new risk.
3. The safety alert follows separate warnings from the FDA about the link between breast implants and anaplastic large cell lymphoma, which the agency first identified in 2011.
4. The FDA is urging healthcare providers to report instances of squamous cell carcinoma, lymphoma or other cancers located in scar tissue around breast implants through its MedWatch database.