What is new in breast reconstruction surgery?
Academic Title: Assistant Professor
Board Certifications:
Surgery
There have been many changes in breast reconstructive surgery over recent years. First, the number and quality of breast reconstructive options available to women has expanded greatly over the past decade. Due to improved options for reconstruction, as well as the availability of gene testing for breast cancer susceptibility, many more women are choosing to have bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction.
Another change in breast reconstructive surgery is the use of fat-grafting in breast reconstruction. Fat-grafting is essentially liposuction from another area of the body and injection into the breast to fill in irregularities or increase the size of a reconstructed breast.
As mentioned previously, many of the newer operations for breast reconstruction have been innovated microsurgical breast reconstruction. Perforator-based free flaps (such as the DIEP and PAP flap) have allowed plastic surgeons to reconstruct a breast from areas such as the abdomen, buttocks and thighs.