Fibromyalgia

The IRG's comment on a published article by Lori Brown "Silicone gel breast implant rupture, extracapsular silicone and health status in a population of women" (J Rheumatol 2001; 28:996-103)

This is an interesting study reviewing the possible association between extra-capsular silicone -gel breast implant rupture and fibromyalgia. The review also looks at other published studies in this area. The main emphasis of this paper is that extra-capsular rupture as detected by MRI is associated with a 2-3 fold increase of fibromyalgia in women when compared with those women who have had an implant but in whom there is no evidence of rupture. The authors comment that no control studies have been done to explore the prevalence of fibromyalgia in women without an implant using the questionnaire employed in the current study. These data clearly need confirmation by other more carefully controlled studies but nevertheless the findings are of potential clinical relevance.