Robert Whitfield MD explains how scar tissue forms around breast implants and can hide infections. A patient's tissue removed during cancer surgery revealed E. Coli trapped in the scar capsule, undetectable by blood tests or physical exam.
E. Coli
So whether you have a hip, knee, breast, dental, cardiac, neurologic, whatever implant is ever placed in your body, your body immediately forms a scar around it because your body knows that's foreign, so it creates a reaction. And we took all of that tissue out, which is customary when I did oncologic treatments, because in that tissue you could have recurrent cancer. So you send all that so the pathologist can look at it. And then I would always check it for infection because that's part of my training. And so I did that for the patient and she fortunately had no evidence of recurrent cancer, but she did, on the examination, looking for bacteria, have an E. Coli infection. Now how does that happen? E. Coli in the breast? Right. So for everybody listening, that should be the question, like how does that specific infection happen? And why couldn't I see it with a blood test or with a in person physical examination? And that's because it was locked inside the scar tissue up against the breast implant.
