Robert Whitfield MDAmerica's Breast Implant Illness Expert™

Silicone vs. Saline: Risks You Must Know

20 Apr 2025 · 0 min

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A short conversational excerpt from a YouTube video ("Silicone vs. Saline: Risks You Must Know") featuring Robert Whitfield MD discussing risks of breast implants. Whitfield states that breast implant cancers are low-incidence but occur mainly with textured implants, mentions a single B‑cell lymphoma case in his practice, and notes that saline smooth implants were predominantly used in the U.S. from 1996 until 2013 when new silicone implants returned to market. The other speaker emphasizes that breast implant illness can occur with any implant type.

Questions this video answers

Textured implants.

From 1996 until 2013.

Yes — one instance of a B cell lymphoma.

Like, are there more problems with silicone versus saline, et cetera?
So breast implant cancers are a problem. It's a really low incidence. It's. It's mainly in the textured implants. I have one instance of this in my practice where it's not a T cell lymphoma, but it's a B cell lymphoma. So I have seen it. It's really unfortunate. I would like to say that I know for sure who has textured and who has saline is going to have these different outcomes, but I don't, because I see so many people. And saline smooth implants were used predominantly in our country from 1996 until 2013, when a new kind of silicone implant was brought back to market, and then the other implants were brought back to market as well. So I've seen all of them.
Yeah, all of them have caused problems. People get breast implant illness no matter what kind of implant.
Yeah, there's not easy to indict, you know, situation here. It's just. It's a foreign body and, you know, whether it's, you know, your dental implant or your cardiac implant or. I used to help all the orthopedic surgeons. Anybody can get infection from the implant place. But many times they're used for really functional purposes, like reconstructing someone's jaw for cancer or replacing a knee joint for osteoarthritis or cancer. I mean, there are all sorts of things that have to be done in the name of keeping someone, you know, mobile or able to eat.