Australian women with breast implants are being told to find out whether they have been fitted with a banned French product, but the federal government says there is no evidence to support their removal.
Global fears over implants made by French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) have prompted the government to set up a hotline to field calls from women with any concerns regarding their silicone implants.
While the British government said there was no evidence to recommend removal of the implants, French, German and Czech health authorities are advising women to have the potentially faulty implants removed because of an increased risk of rupture.
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Officials have also said that cancer, including 16 cases of breast cancer, has been detected in 20 French women with the implants, but have insisted there is no proven link to the disease.
Acting Health Minister Nicola Roxon reassured women that, based on advice from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), there was no evidence of increased rupture rates of the PIP implants in Australia.
She said many women would be unaware of which implant they had and there was no official record of how many had been fitted with PIP products, although an estimated 9000 have been implanted in about 5000 Australian women.
She advised women to get a clinical assessment of their implants from their GP or surgeon or call the government's hotline to speak to a registered nurse.
"We do need to make clear to women that our current advice is that there is no particular additional risk," Ms Roxon told reporters in Melbourne on Saturday.
"But one of our concerns is, in Australia, we do not and cannot easily identify today which women have had which implants."
he said the government would collect data on which women had the PIP implants so they could be contacted in case further advice on the product emerged.
More information about the implants would emerge in coming months as women in Europe had theirs removed and tested, she said.
Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Catherine King, said there was no evidence to support the routine removal of the implants.
She said the TGA had received 37 reports of ruptured PIP implants since 2000 which was "within the expected risk of rupture".
"All of the evidence internationally is that the material that has been found (in the implants) is not of greater risk," she said.
"There are precautionary measures that other countries are taking because of the concern that it is not a medical-grade silicone, it has been an industrial-grade silicone that has been used.
"The TGA has tested it and certainly tested it pre-market and has continued to monitor that post-market.
"They have not found any evidence of toxicity in the material they have tested but they obviously are concerned of the limited data that they have."
The 24 hour Breast Implant Information Line is 1800 217 257.
The hotline will operate 24 hours a day from Saturday.
