MELINDA HAWS, M.D.
Plastic Surgeon
Chair, ASAPS BII Task Force
The Aesthetic Society
Breast Implant Recipient
Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Melinda Haws. I’m a board-certified plastic surgeon. I’ve been in practice for 21 years.
I also am a breast augmentation patient with textured breast implants that have been in place for about 21 years.
I’m a member of the Aesthetic Society, and I’m here as the Chair of the BII Task Force that the Aesthetic Society has started.
We formed this in response to an increase in the number of the breast implant illness patients that were being seen in all of our offices.
To obtain quick information, the task force distributed surveys to our members, and what we found was it wasn’t just me, it wasn’t just him; half of our members are seeing breast implant illness patients.
So, we dug a little deeper. We found most of these women are between the age of 35 to 55, and we found implant removal, once performed, highly variable regression of the symptoms; they were kind of all over the place.
But this is retrospective data, this is not great data, so we’re starting more studies, and we want you all to help us with those.
The Aesthetic Society’s research arm, ASERF, has designed two studies looking at the breast implant [illness] patients and their symptoms. These are novel studies looking at them through bacterial as well as genetic origins.
Patients with breast implants or electing to have breast implants deserve accurate, credible, up-to-date information.
Previous studies are no comfort to the many intelligent, articulate women here who complain of these symptoms and are suffering.
Breast implants are a 100% elective device, and women are well within their rights to get these removed at any time. But we need accurate data for informed consent, and that’s why the ASERF studies are important.
The Aesthetic Society task force has also developed talking points so that I can help these women be respected and heard when they go to plastic surgeons’ offices. We need to educate our members like you’ve educated your members. We want to reinforce the physician-patient relationship again.
We want to make sure the patient is respected and heard. We’re also looking at pre- and post-surgery questionnaires, and I ask you to please follow up with your plastic surgeons so we can see what symptoms resolve and when, so that when I see a new patient I can say ‘30% likelihood’, ‘75% likelihood’ this will go away.
All of this data is going to be fed into the Aesthetic Neural Network, the Aesthetic Society’s arm, so that we can then add that data to the National Breast Implant Registry when it’s needed.
So, going forward, the Aesthetic Society’s BII talking points, the questionnaires and the data collection, we want to bridge the gap between physicians and patients, we want to work together to investigate these symptoms, and as medicine continues to evolve, we want to be advocates for you and for our future patients.
Thank you.
(Applause.)
[Open public comment given by Dr. Melinda Haws, at the General and Plastic Surgery Devices Panel, FDA White Oak Campus, Building #31, Great Room, on March 25, 2019. The title of this article does not constitute part of the speaker’s presentation to the FDA Panel, and any hyperlinks within the text or text appearing in brackets were added for clarity or ease of use by editors.]