Platinum is a catalyst used in the making of silicone implant polymer shells and other silicone devices used in medicine. The literature indicates that small amounts of platinum leaches (leaks) from these implants and is present in the surrounding tissue. The FDA reviewed the available studies from the medical literature on platinum and breast implants in 2002 and concluded there was little evidence suggesting toxicity from platinum in implant patients.^[64]

In 2006, researchers published a controversial study that claimed to identify the previously undocumented presence of toxic platinum oxidative states in vivo.^[65] A letter from the editors of the publishing journal, Analytical Chemistry, subsequently expressed concern over the research's experimental design and urged the journal's readers to "use caution in evaluating the conclusions drawn in the paper."^[66] The FDA reviewed this study and the existing literature, concluding that the body of existing research did not support their findings, and that the platinum in new implants is likely not ionized and therefore would not represent a significant risk to women.^[67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_implant#_note-arepelli2003

1: J Long Term Eff Med Implants. 2002;12(4):299-306. Links

Allergic reaction to platinum in silicone breast implants.

Arepalli SR, Bezabeh S, Brown SL.

Division of General, Restorative, and Neurological Devices, Office of Device Evaluation, Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Maryland 20850, USA.

Platinum is used as a catalyst in the manufacture of silicone breast implants. Because platinum is recognized as a potent sensitizer in certain circumstances, some have expressed concern that women with silicone breast implants are exposed to platinum, which is causing allergic reactions. We searched the literature for information on the level of platinum in breast implants and reports of sensitization that clearly related to platinum in women with breast implants. We found no published report with convincing evidence that platinum causes allergic reactions in women with breast implants or that women with breast implants are any more likely to have allergic reactions than women without breast implants.

PMID: 12627791 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

1: Anal Chem. 2006 Aug 1;78(15):5607-8. Links

Comment on:: Anal Chem. 2006 May 1;78(9):2925-33.

Comments on total platinum concentration and platinum oxidation states in body fluids, tissue, and explants from women exposed to silicone and saline breast implants by IC-ICPMS.

Lane TH.

Dow Corning Corporation, 2200 W Salzburg Road, Midland, Michigan 48686, USA. tom.lane@dowcorning.com

The paper by Lykissa and Maharaj (Lykissa, E. D.; Maharaj, S. V. M Anal. Chem. 2006, 78, 2925-2933) purports to provide evidence that the urine of women with silicone breast implants contain 60 to over 1700 times more platinum in their urine that the urine of people with no known exposure to platinum. Further, they purport to show evidence that the platinum used in the manufacture of breast implants (Pt0) is converted by a unknown process to yield highly oxidized platinum species, stable in biological matrixes, up to and including Pt6+. This correspondence poses three questions associated with the work and directs the reader's attention to the data, which clearly show that the blood and urine platinum levels in implanted women and their healthy control group were not significantly different from one another.

PMID: 16878903 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Gigi-Karen