Do augmented women develop breast cancer more frequently?
The answer is ‘no’. Large groups of women that have had breast augmentation surgery have been tracked for many years to assess their development of breast cancer. In these studies, the rate of occurrence of breast cancer in the augmented group is no higher than in un-augmented women. Furthermore, the stage of breast cancer, once detected, is not higher in augmented women. In fact, some literature suggests that augmented women have their breast cancers detected at an earlier stage than un-augmented women. One explanation that has been suggested for this finding is that augmented women may have a heightened ‘breast awareness’ and do more breast self-examination.
