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Study says suicide rate higher on plastic surgery patients
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Thursday October 12, 2006 ins: Cosmetic Surgery News
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Technorati Tags: breast implants, cosmetic surgery
Canada is planning to put silicone implants back on the market. To ensure that the move is appropriate, Health Canada, the Federal department responsible for helping Canadians maintain and improve their health, conducted a study along with the Public Health Agency of Canada, University of Toronto, Cancer Care Ontario, and the University of Laval, on the mortality rate of women who have had breast implants.
The study produced interesting results. Contrary to popular belief, women with breast implants had lower rates of cancer compared to the general female population.
Canada.com presents the details.
What they found is that, overall, women who underwent breast implantation had lower rates of mortality than the general population, at comparable ages over the same period.
They also had lower rates of cancer, contrary to popular belief, with 229 cancer deaths among the nearly 25,000 women. About 303 would be expected in the general female population.
This reinforces the results of similar studies negating the notion that breast implants cause breast cancer and other related diseases.
The study, however, showed that there is a significant increase in the suicide rate among women who underwent breast augmentation. The results indicate that there were 58 suicides among the 480 breast-implant recipients who passed away. The general female population without implants only has 33 suicides noted.
An article on the study, published in the American Journal of Epidemology, stressed that a serious consideration should be given with regards to providing consultation for patients with whom plastic surgeons consider to be at high risk of psychiatric disorder. It is a common notion that women who go to their surgeons for a certain cosmetic surgery procedure are considered to possess a relatively low self-esteem. Of course this doesn’t apply to all, but more often than not, this is the case.
Plastic surgeons are now faced with another big responsibility of ensuring that their patients are emotional and psychologically ready for any procedure that they might choose to undergo. This is where the consultation process becomes crucial not only to the success of the operation, but also to draw out the patient’s motivations behind the move to go under the knife.
The results of the study should practically not affect the plan of putting the silicone implants back into the market. The study didn’t prove that it was because of the implants that these women committed suicide. It simply showed that women who went through a cosmetic procedure had some psychological issues that were not dealt with accordingly, thus, the higher suicide rate. It is therefore quite not rational to blame the suicide hike on those innocent prosthetics.
Instead, plastic surgeons have to work on really examining the psychological state of their patients. They should detect the slightest trace of unrealistic expectations, which might show up later long after the surgery has been performed. This and other factors might lead to dissatisfaction, depression, and up to the point where taking their own lives seemed to be the best answer to everything that burdens them.
This is not an easy task considering that surgeons are not psychologists, nor psychiatrists. But emphasis on this, they should give, in order to provide patients the care and attention they deserve.
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