FDA warns women about getting breast enhancements.

The Food and Drug Admin- istration on Thursday warned women who have breast implants or are consider- ing getting them that cer- tain cancers may develop in scar tissue forming around the implants.

The malignancies seem to be rare, but they have been linked to implants of all types, including those with textured and smooth surfaces, and those filled with saline or silicone.

Sc ientists already had linked an unusual cancer called anaplastic large cell lymphoma primarily to textured implants, whose rough exteriors presumably cause more inflammation than those of smooth implants. Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system.

The FDA confirmed that link more than a decade ago, but textured implants, made by Allergan, were on the mar- ket until 2019. The agency’s new warning called attention to another cancer, called squamous cell carcinoma, and also to other types of lymphoma that may be related to the implants.

There are few documented cases. The FDA said it was aware of fewer than 20 cases of carcinoma, and fewer than 30 cases of unexpected lymphomas, in the capsule around the breast implant. (The capsule is the scar tissue that builds up around the implant.)

Given the history of implants and their widespread use, however, federal health officials felt concern was warranted. In some cases, women were diagnosed after years of having breast implants. Among the symptoms were swelling, pain, lumps and changes in the skin.

Although lymphomas and other cancers in the area around the implant may be rare, “health care providers and people who have or are considering breast implants should be aware that cases have been reported to the FDA and in the literature,” the FDA said.

An agency spokesperson, Audra Harrison, said that the new cancers were an “emerging safety signal that we’re seeing with implants that we will be communicating about, separate from ALCL,” the previously documented cancer.

But cases of lymphomas other than ALCL in women with breast implants have been reported in scientific literature for about a decade, said Dr. Mark Clemens, a professor of plastic surgery at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

They are rare, he added, and the new warning should not be cause for w idespread alarm. The realization that ALCL was linked to breast implants already had “enabled us to be more cognizant that other things could be happening in that area,” Clemens said.

“If ALCL is uncommon, these are very rare,” he added. It has long been known that scar tissue, like that resulting from breast implant surgery, can yield squamous cell carcinoma, Clemens added.