Sweden mulls ban on boob job jabs

Swedish medical authorities are considering banning injections to enhance the size of women's breasts due to concerns that the substance used makes it hard to detect breast cancer.

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The Swedish Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket) has warned that injectable implants can “hamper and sometimes make it impossible to interpret mammogram images”.

The injections use hyaluronic acid and promise to increase the cup size of a woman's breasts on a semi-permanent basis without the need for surgery.

“The advantages are obvious. The patient doesn't need to be sedated and doesn't get any ugly scars from an operation,” plastic surgeon Jan Jernbeck of the Akademikliniken in Stockholm told the Expressen newspaper.

“She doesn't even need to be gone from work.”

The Medical Products Agency has launched an investigation into the matter after receiving calls from a number of mammography centres complaining that the implant injections are causing problems for breast cancer screening.

The agency plans to consult experts from companies as well as medical professionals and officials from the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) as a part of its analysis of the effects of the injectable implants.

The health board recently published a set of national breast cancer guidelines stating that mammography is an important factor to increase a woman's chances of surviving breast cancer, as the procedure can often reveal tumours at an earlier stage of development.

The agency said it is working as quickly as possible to come up with a ruling as to whether or not the injections should be banned in Sweden.