Robert Whitfield MD explains why implants get infected: bacteria from distant infections or skin breaches seed the implant surface, form biofilm, and evade immune clearance. PCR testing found bacterial contamination in 29% of specimens, often without obvious symptoms.
PCR testing
29%
She had an occult or a hidden breast implant infection. And, you know, I get asked all the time, well, you know, how did that happen? So for everybody listening, whether it's a hip, knee, breast, dental, neurologic, spinal, or any kind of implant, when it's placed, there are processes and systems in the operating rooms to avoid contamination of an implant. So it's very rare that one would get contaminated on placement. For everybody listening, this is more in my. In my mind. Over time, we get exposed to different things, and I'm sure on your show as well as my show, we talk about the different exposures we can get through the environment and through products we use. But in this specific instance, we're talking about how someone, say, gets a cut on their skin and it gets inflamed or infected, and that bacteria from the cut enters our bloodstream. And because it's an implant, whether it's hip, knee, breast, dental, like I said, it can become attached to the implant because the implant's not your tissue, it doesn't have a blood supply. So what does that even. Why does that matter? Well, your body can't clear that. So in our immune system, we have a series of cells called natural killer cells, and they help surveil our system and protect us. You know, it's like our own, you know, cells trying to look out for us for cancer and infection and all these things, viruses, but this can't be eradicated. And some of these communities of bacteria produce a biofilm. The biofilm makes it even more complicated for your immune system to get rid of it. Things like staph epidermidis. Everybody's heard of staph. Staph infection. So staph epidermis is commonly found in our skin. And another bacteria called Kidibacterium acnes, which is also found on our skin, especially on our face, you know, acne, cutie bacterium. Acne is part of that chest, shoulders, neck. Those two types of bacteria readily produce biofilm. And we recently published a paper that shows Ketobacterium acnes and then staph in our series are relatively the two most common things we find on those specimens. We take them out and send them off for. For testing. We use PCR testing, so we publish that to establish a rate so that people understand what we're seeing in explains. So 29% of the time we find this bacterial contamination. And so I'm going to take it a step further so everybody understands how this works. Now, I used to hypothesize that because you had a contaminant of bacterial biofilm that you would have immune system stimulation or activation that could give you symptoms. Well, we now know that's the case.
