By Stefanos Evripidou
THE EUROPEAN Parliament is drafting a resolution setting down strict rules and guidelines on breast implant surgery, including the introduction of national registers and passports. If acted upon, these rules will be adopted in Cyprus where chest-enhancing operations have hit the thousands – for both sexes.
Plastic surgeon Dr Alecos Kammitsis was the first person to introduce breast implants to Cyprus in 1975. He told the Cyprus Mail that since then, thousands of people had had breasts implants, adding that ninety-nine per cent were for cosmetic purposes.
The draft report on Community and national measures in relation to breast implants was compiled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. It sets out measures to ensure patients are provided with adequate information, correct procedures and appropriate products for breast implant surgery, while calling for better information on quality control and research.
Doctors will be obliged to provide full and reliable information on the procedures and initiate a clear, informed discussion of the implications of breast implant surgery. The report calls on national authorities to establish a register system to enable both producers and patients to be traced. Counselling after the operation and check-ups at least once a year are also advocated by the committee.
Advertising needs to be regulated to avoid inflating demand for implants among men and women without providing balanced information. The paper also requests that advertising for “cosmetic surgery” should carry clear bold health warnings.
The focus should be an acceptance of persons as they are, “rather than allowing unregulated advertising practices to impose an ideal conception of beauty as the norm”.
Implant recipients will hold a passport under committee recommendations, in which details of the implant and aftercare measures are indicated, while the passport will act as proof of consent for the operation.
Kammitsis maintains that the content used in breast implants is continually improving. “The main problem arises with the technique used rather than the content. It is the outer part of the implant which has been known to leak, not the inner content,” he said.
“But implants have improved a lot and I have never come across any problems in my experience,” said Kammitsis.
Currently, there are no standards on implants in Cyprus. “We are waiting for the EU to complete their studies and recommendations and then we will adopt them ourselves,” he said. “Basically, they are asking doctors fully to inform the patient what is to be done and make sure they understand.”
Kammitsis said that the majority of people enlarging their breasts were young women between 20 and 40 years of age. The number of men asking for the operation was in the hundreds, he added. “Personally I have performed 40 operations on men,” he said.
“There are minor risks to the operation but a lot depends on the technique used by the doctor. Their life-span is not fixed. As long as they are doing alright, they don’t need replacing. One of my patients has had hers for 27 years,” he added.
However, to avoid loosening the breast, post-natal women are warned not to breast feed if they want to maintain the aesthetic effect.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
