YouTube conversation featuring Robert Whitfield MD about implants and autoimmunity. The unidentified speaker asserts that some studies show implants are associated with an eight-fold increased risk of autoimmunity; Whitfield discusses the difficulty of counseling cancer reconstruction patients under time pressure and conveying long-term risks so they can make informed decisions.
But I can say that a few studies that I've looked at recently show that implants are associated with an 8 times increased risk of autoimmunity, which is very significant and needs to be communicated to patients preoperatively as a significant risk.
Right. Right. Yeah. That's. I mean, most of the things that I have are not, you know, because of my work in cancer reconstruction. Like, you're faced with a problem. These people are having very difficult, you know, life changing events thrown at them. And then I would be the last person they would see on a Friday afternoon. They would have surgery the following week. And I'm supposed to explain to them all the things that I do from a reconstructive standpoint. And they're supposed to synthesize that information to make an informed decision about what's best for them long term. Pretty challenging.
