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Women with silicone breast implants and autoimmune inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants: description of three patients and a critical review of the literature

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Abstract

Silicone has been widely used in the manufacture of medical implants. It is well tolerated in most cases. However, in this paper we report the cases of three women who developed autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA syndrome), namely with silicone breast implants. The symptoms in these cases include arthralgia, arthritis, myalgia, sleep disturbances, the appearance of autoantibodies, miscarriage, Raynaud’s phenomenon, and involvement of autoimmune diseases (scleroderma and undifferentiated connective tissue diseases). In one patient, breast implants were removed, but no improvement was seen after the removal. The remaining two patients received the updated information about their condition, and they decided not to remove the implants. In conclusion, earlier reports that silicone is biologically relatively inert have recently been challenged with the description of ASIA syndrome.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Rheumatology, School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Resavska 69, 11000, Belgrade, Serbia

    Slavica Pavlov-Dolijanovic & Nada Vujasinovic Stupar

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  1. Slavica Pavlov-Dolijanovic
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  2. Nada Vujasinovic Stupar
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Correspondence to Slavica Pavlov-Dolijanovic.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Pavlov-Dolijanovic, S., Vujasinovic Stupar, N. Women with silicone breast implants and autoimmune inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants: description of three patients and a critical review of the literature. Rheumatol Int 37, 1405–1411 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-017-3731-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-017-3731-4

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