By Dr. Killeen, published on March 27, 2026
My belief and my understanding of the literature right now is that the Motiva Smooth Cell and the Smooth should be safe and not induce those cancers.
Breast implants do not increase your risk of the type of breast cancer most people think of — the "one in eight women" statistic is unaffected by implants. However, there are two rare cancers associated with breast implants that you should know about.
This is a rare lymphoma that was discovered in women with breast implants. What we now know is that BIA-ALCL is associated specifically with textured breast implants — but not all textured implants are the same.
The implants linked to BIA-ALCL have aggressive texturing in the range of 40 to 90 microns. All of the manufacturers that make these more aggressively textured implants have had ALCL cases reported.
Motiva's texturing is only 4 microns — which is much closer to a smooth implant (0 to 2 microns) than to the aggressively textured implants associated with ALCL. The FDA previously even classified Motiva as smooth implants for this reason.
As of 2026, there are zero cases of ALCL in patients who have only had smooth implants or only had Motiva smooth cell implants. The current belief is that these implant types do not induce this cancer.
If you look in the ALCL patient database, you may see patients who had smooth or Motiva implants at the time of diagnosis. But these patients also had a history of textured implants — the textured implants were not their only implant. Understanding this context is critical when interpreting the data.
The second rare cancer is squamous cell carcinoma. We know that chronic inflammation can lead to squamous cell carcinomas — we see it in chronic wounds and chronic stomach ulcers. Now we've seen it in patients with long-standing capsular contractures.
This isn't really about the implant itself — it's about the chronic inflammatory environment around it. This is another important reason to get capsular contractures fixed. Every woman deserves a soft, non-painful breast, and there is this very rare cancer associated with untreated contractures.
One common concern is that Motiva implants haven't been around long enough to know if they're truly safe. But Motiva has been on the market for 15 years globally. Just because they've only been available in the U.S. for about a year doesn't mean they're new.
Could a case emerge in the future? We never say never in medicine. But based on the current literature and reported cases, Motiva smooth cell and smooth implants appear to be safe and do not appear to induce these cancers.