Breast reconstruction surgery involves restoring the shape of a patient’s breast which was removed enabling women to feel “whole” again. Many women tend to suffer from low self-esteem, depression, or face stigmatisation in the community, as a result of having a mastectomy, which is a surgery that involves removing the entire breast.
There are two broad types of breast reconstruction procedures for women who have undergone mastectomy. There is autologous reconstruction, which involves using one’s own body tissues or an implant based reconstruction, which involves using either silicon or saline based material for the reconstruction. Autologous reconstruction may involve using tissue from the back or from the abdomen.
The current standard of care for autologous reconstruction in many centres worldwide is the ‘Deep Inferior Epigastric Perforator’ (DIEP) flap. A DIEP involves taking tissue from the patient’s abdomen and relocating it to create a new breast mound. Aga Khan University Hospital was the first Hospital in East and Central Africa to successfully do DIEP procedure recently which has now benefitted a number of patients.
The DIEP flap procedure is safe and recommended as an option for women seeking reconstruction after losing one breast, or both, and in those who cannot have implants because they have been treated with radiation. A patient only requires one surgery and not more than a week in hospital, followed by a fairly short recovery period. As patient selection is key, a multi-disciplinary team with members from oncology, surgery, radiology and pathology will have met beforehand to discuss oncological care and surgical management options.
Before surgery, specialists including a breast surgeon, plastic surgeon, anesthesiologist and nurse, review the patient’s medical history, and are present during the procedure.
This technique involves a breast surgeon performing a specialised skin sparing mastectomy that preserves a large skin envelope or a nipple sparing mastectomy where appropriate, to preserve the nipple areolar area, while removing the cancerous tissue. This is akin to coring out an apple, but preserving the peel.
The plastic surgeon then takes a section of tissue from the patient’s abdomen and relocates it to create a new breast mound. The skin and fat below the belly button feels very similar to breast tissue therefore being the perfect choice to replace the breast tissue removed during surgery. A small incision is made in the abdominal muscle sheath to access the blood vessels. The prepared tissue is then disconnected from the body and transplanted to the chest using microsurgery to provide blood flow to the tissue.
The advantage of DIEP and other autologous reconstruction over implant based reconstruction is:
It has a more natural feel since it uses own body tissue Since it is your own body tissue, it ages with you and therefore gives one a natural symmetry with time and aging, unlike the implant based reconstruction. As the procedure involves getting some tissue from the tummy, women get a concurrent tummy tuck as well in the process. Patient selection however remains key for any reconstruction procedures offered to cancer patients and different methods may work better in certain situations. It is always important to have a multidisciplinary team discuss and bring their collective expertise together to decide on the best option for an individual patient.
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