Can Silicone Breast Implants Get Into Your Lymph Nodes?

Yes — silicone can migrate to your lymph nodes, particularly in your armpit, if you have silicone implants. This is one of those complications that sounds a lot scarier than it really is in reality.

We don't really know what percentage of women with silicone implants have silicone in their lymph nodes. Some studies show a high percentage of women having their implants removed had silicone adenopathy, but they don't account for how many of those patients had ruptured implants or how long the implants were in place.

Older implants were more problematic because the silicone was more liquid — like Karo syrup, not the gummy consistency we have today. They had thinner shells, ruptured more easily, and when they did, silicone would spread into breast tissue and lymph nodes. For current generation implants (2005 and later), the true risk isn't well quantified.

I can tell you that in my entire career, I've never seen a patient with silicone in their lymph nodes where it was blocking lymph flow and causing swelling. It can certainly happen, but it's not common. And remember — I specialize in breast surgery and deal with implants all the time.

A study that looked at women with silicone in their lymph nodes found that roughly 70% were completely asymptomatic. The silicone was found incidentally on biopsy, but nothing was actually going on. Some women had pain in the area, and others had palpable lymph nodes that weren't painful.

Most women with breast implants don't have trouble that requires their lymph nodes to be examined. When we do look at lymph nodes, it's typically for a specific reason — the patient is being treated for breast cancer with preexisting implants, or they're part of a group that had implants removed due to suspected symptoms.

Unfortunately, there were some doctors unnecessarily biopsying lymph nodes as part of explant procedures. When they found silicone, they used it as justification for everything they were doing — without those results actually changing treatment.

Although silicone in the lymph nodes sounds scary, the reality in real-world breast surgery is that we don't see it causing problems often. The improvements made to implants over the last several decades have significantly reduced the chance of this happening.

If you're concerned, this is a great conversation to have with your surgeon when considering breast augmentation or breast reconstruction with implants.

This is also a great reminder that implants require ongoing monitoring. We know that having implants for a long time and ruptured implants increase the chance of silicone migration. Once you have implants, make sure you're getting your MRI or ultrasound after five years, and every other year after that, so you can catch ruptures quickly and minimize the chance of this problem.