The following "discovery" do***ent demonstrates how breast cancer
reconstruction patients were targeted for breast implants. It was
sent to us a few years ago by Pam Dowd, and it is worth reposting for
those who haven't seen it before.
Myrl
http://www.webstarmagic.com/wisletter.htm
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Breast Cancer Reconstruction Patients are targeted for breast implants
in 1990.
KKA38328
November 9, 1990
TO: John Gauger
From: Mary Anne Woodbury
(Epidimiologist)
(517) 496-8212
The attached information may be of interest to you. For all intents
and purposes breast implants are only being done in white women.
Therefore, those states with the highest number of plastic surgeons
per number of white women offer the greatest potential marketing
areas; assuming that the market is far less than saturated and that a
sufficient number of women are available with an adequate income.
Our analysis of two recent representative surveys of U.S. women
indicates that women with breast implants are characterized as white
women in the southern U.S. (coast to coast) who have family incomes
above $35,000 per year and have a very lean body. The average age at
implant is around 30; 64% of those with bilateral implants had their
first implant when they were between age 25 and 40. The data also
suggest that women with between one and three years of college are
more likely to have had implants that other levels of education.
There were no discernible occupational patterns for implant patients.
Except for an increase in average age at implant, reconstructive
implant patients have the same characteristics as cosmetic patients.
The predominance of implants among white women is probably a result of
a high degree of value being place on breast size among U.S. whites
and from the greater affluence of the white population in the U.S.
With 88,000 new cases of breast cancer occurring in white women per
year in the United States and with mastectomy being the most common
first therapy, the reconstructive field would appear to be a major
potential market. One of the major risk factors for breast cancer is
upper socio-economic status (probably due to it correlation with other
factors). Many breast cancer patients will fit the profile of an
implant patient and will be in a position to afford to have a
reconstruction. However, it must be recognized that the cost of
cancer therapy may counteract the financial advantage. The
reconstructive patient, then, would appear to a ready market.
We are in the process of preparing a full re****t on breast implant
prevalence rates and the characteristics of breast implant patients.
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