Breast reconstruction and infection: you be the judge

The NYT has run a couple of articles this week on breast implants. I might eventually come back to blog about the first one, but today, it's the second that's got my goat.

The second one reports on a research study published in Archives of Surgery (abstract). The NYT article reports, accurately, that the study found that women whose post-mastectomy reconstruction used silicone implants instead of women's own tissue were twice as likely to acquire infections. But there are a couple of interesting things you might notice, if you go look at the abstract.

One is that the absolute risk of infection in these procedures is 12.4% for women with implants, and 6.2% in women whose reconstructions don't involve implants. Double, yes, fair enough. But the abstract also notes and that women who had mastectomies without reconstruction had a 4.4% risk. So...a fairly substantial increase in relative risk occurs between women who forego reconstruction and those who have it, with still higher risks for those who also choose implants. But if you look at the news reports, no-reconstruction, interestingly, is not even reported on as a possible choice. How come? (No hate mail, please: I don't in any way mean to imply that women should or shouldn't have reconstructive surgery, only that the way this particular study has been reported in the popular press is somewhat misleading.)

If you look at the abstract yourself, you might notice a few other things that might give you pause. The study included only 50 women in total--not a very substantial sample size. And the finding that was picked up by the media was incidental to the primary finding of the project, which focused on the economic costs associated with such infections. Also, the study sample was women on their initial hospital admission for the mastectomy/reconstruction procedure, and women who were readmitted...which could conceivably leave out women who *didn't* experience infections as a result of these surgical procedures.

Given how much of our health information comes to us through media filters, we need to be savvy consumers of that information. We need to understand how research works, so that we don't uncritically accept the media spin of research reports. Something happens to research results when they are morphed into news bites...and if we're basing health care decisions for ourselves and our families based on that information, we've got to know how to read critically. It's my hope that we can educate ourselves about how to be more critical consumers of media products. At the same time, I'd like to see women apply judicious pressure on the media to step up to the educational role, and not just pursue the latest bright shiny object.