In January of 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a safety communication regarding the potential association between breast implants and anaplastic large-cell lymphoma (ALCL). In 2012, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, The Plastic Surgery Foundation, and the Food and Drug Administration signed a cooperative research and development agreement to develop the Patient Registry and Outcomes for Breast Implants and Anaplastic Large-Cell Lymphoma Etiology and Epidemiology (PROFILE) patient registry. This is an updated report of registry findings. From August of 2012 to August of 2020, 330 unique, suspected, or confirmed cases of breast implant-associated (BIA) ALCL in the United States were reported to PROFILE, including 144 cases newly reported since the 2018 publication. Median time from implantation of any device to BIA-ALCL diagnosis was 11 years (range, 2 to 44 years). At the time of presentation, 91% of cases had local symptoms and 9% had concurrent systemic symptoms. The most common local symptom was seroma, seen in 79% of patients. All patients had a history of a textured device; there were no patients who had a confirmed smooth-only device history. Approximately 11% of the reported cases were diagnosed with stage 1A disease (tumor-node-metastasis staging classification). The PROFILE registry continues to be an essential tool in unifying the collection of granular-level data pertaining to BIA-ALCL. These data emphasize the critical importance of detailed tracking of BIA-ALCL cases, and will contribute significantly to our understanding of the relationship between breast implants and ALCL.
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