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Silicones and Autoimmunity

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Injection-Induced Breast Siliconomas

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Abstract

Connective tissue diseases have autoimmunity as a common underlying mechanism. This is expressed in clinical manifestations of various characteristics and severity and in the laboratory in the form of autoantibodies. They develop at the moment that environmental factors act on genetically susceptible individuals.

Recent research on genetic susceptibility has shown that environmental triggers frequently act on cellular pathways that contain polymorphisms associated with the disease. When tolerance is broken, the initiating tissue – including dendritic cells – provides a decisive microenvironment that affects cellular immune differentiation and leads to the activation of adaptive immunity. The environmental risk factors for different autoimmune diseases are difficult to assess, due to the limited amount of validated exposure biomarkers on one hand and the rarity of the given autoimmune disease on the other.

Silicone implants have been implicated as playing an important role in a new syndrome that encompasses a wide range of manifestations related to immunity, called autoimmune syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA).

Clinical entities postulated to have some link to silicone implants include rheumatoid arthritis, SLE, scleroderma/systemic sclerosis, Sjögren’s syndrome, and dermatomyositis/polymyositis.

For siliconomas, no bibliography of published evidence exists that unquestionably demonstrates their association with the development of autoimmune pathology. However, it is our opinion that silicone implant patients should be monitored periodically by specialists trained in these diseases to detect early symptoms or signs of autoimmune disease; and, if they occur, they should be assessed based upon their clinical picture and treated accordingly.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rheumatology Division, Clinical Hospital of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Gustavo Guillermo Nasswetter

  2. Faculty of Medicine, UBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Gustavo Guillermo Nasswetter

  3. Rheumatology Division, Clinical Hospital of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Ericka Sarabia Chavez

Authors
  1. Gustavo Guillermo Nasswetter
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  2. Ericka Sarabia Chavez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gustavo Guillermo Nasswetter .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Plastic Surgery, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Gustavo Emilio Schenone

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Nasswetter, G.G., Chavez, E.S. (2020). Silicones and Autoimmunity. In: Schenone, G. (eds) Injection-Induced Breast Siliconomas. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24116-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24116-2_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-24115-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24116-2

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