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Last Updated: May 5, 2009 - 12:58:27 PM |
WEDNESDAY March 26, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- An 18 year-old girl in Boca Raton Florida died from a fatal reaction to anesthesia soon after a surgery to correct asymmetrical breasts, news media reported.
Stephanie Kuleba was a pretty, popular cheerleader who had everything in life nearly perfect except that her breasts were asymmetrical and she had an inverted areola. So she received an outpatient cosmetic surgery in a clinic in Boca Raton, Fla.
She died Sunday 24 hours after the surgery from an extremely rare yet fatal reaction to anesthesia called malignant hyperthermia.
The condition, which raises the body temperature to as high as 112 degrees and causes salts to precipitate out of the blood, can be reversed if found early enough by administering an antidote. But it's difficult to detect it during the surgery.
The death raises questions about the safety of elective breast augmentation surgery received by more than 347,000 women of all ages in 2007 alone.
The Food and Drug Administration cautions that only women 18 or older get breast implants; but an increasing number of girls under that age opt to receive the surgery every year. In 2005, according to MSNBC, more than 3,500 young girls just did breast implants.
The condition that led to death of the Florida girl is rare. But Dr. Richard D'Amico, the president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, was cited MSNBC as saying that can occur to anyone.
"This is something that can happen in any surgery, on any part of the body, in any setting," said D'Amico.
D'Amico himself encountered the condition once during a routine nasal surgery on a male patient. The patient was lucky because the anesthesiologist found the signs of malignant hyperthermia early enough to take remedial action and save the man's life.
The problem with the condition is that there is no easy way to know who would be at risk of the reaction.
D'Amico warned no surgery is completely safe and recommended that anyone who contemplated any cosmetic procedure should use a board-certified plastic surgeon in a big clinic with good reputation.
Kuleba's family has hired an attorney to investigate the death. So far there has been no reporting that the family filed any lawsuit against the clinic.
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