To rebuild the breast mound after a mastectomy, the selection is both implant reconstruction or tissue (flap) reconstruction. Which of those procedures you and your physician decide is determined by your physique kind, breast measurement, and desire.
Implant Reconstruction
Implant reconstruction may be achieved similtaneously a mastectomy (referred to as direct to implant), but it surely will not be the best technique. “The revision price [having additional surgery later] of direct-to-implant is greater than when you do the process in two phases,” says Butler. That’s as a result of the pores and skin over the breast could get pressured or injured throughout a mastectomy. “If I then place a big implant into that pores and skin pocket, I’m stressing the pores and skin much more, which may result in issues corresponding to implant extrusion [when the implant pushes through the skin] or an infection.”
As a substitute, the process is normally achieved in phases. First, the surgeon locations a tissue expander below the pores and skin on the time of the mastectomy. “Then we inflate the tissue expander, type of like inflating a balloon, each few weeks within the workplace till we attain the best measurement. As soon as we attain the best measurement, then we convey the affected person again for a small outpatient process the place we take away the tissue expander and place the implant,” says Lyle Leipziger, MD, chief of cosmetic surgery at North Shore College Hospital and Lengthy Island Jewish Medical Middle in New York.
Flap Reconstruction
One benefit to flap reconstruction is that it makes use of your personal tissue as a substitute of a international implant. “A second, smaller surgical procedure is often wanted to regulate the tissue and form the breast,” Dr. Colwell says.
Nipple and Areola Reconstruction
With a mastectomy, typically, the surgeon is ready to protect the pores and skin of the breast and solely removes the tissue beneath. “It’s typically additionally attainable to maintain the nipple of the breast in a nipple-sparing mastectomy process,” says Colwell.
