(CNN) A woman who survived a close-range gunshot wound to the chest was saved because of her silicone breast implants, doctors believe.

In a case study published to the SAGE medical journal last week, doctors described how a silicone breast implant deflected a bullet away from a 30-year-old woman's vital organs.

The incident, which took place in 2018 in Toronto, Canada, is one of only a handful of instances recorded in medical literature where a breast implant played a role in saving a patient's life, and the first recorded instance of a silicone implant doing so, surgeon Giancarlo McEvenue told CNN.

Doctors noted that the silicone implant was likely responsible for deflecting the bullet's trajectory -- ultimately saving the woman's life.

An X-ray showing the bullet in the lateral thoracic wall.

There are two types of breast implants approved for sale in the United States. They both have a silicone outer shell, but one is saline-filled, and the other is silicone gel-filled. They can vary in size, shell thickness, shell surface texture and shape, and are typically implanted to increase breast size or to rebuild breast tissue, such as after a mastectomy or other damage to the breast.

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