Many women with invasive breast cancer unaware of skin-sparing mastectomy

January 11, 2016

The skin-sparing technique uses a simple, small, circular incision around the edge of the nipple area. The surgeon leaves all or most of the overlying breast skin, preserving the natural skin envelope that can be filled with an implant or with a patient's own fat tissue from another part of the body. This skin-sparing technique is appropriate for women whose breast cancer does not invade the skin of the breast and particularly when immediate reconstruction is plannedlions of women have benefited from elective breast surgery by plastic surgeons over the past 60 years to correct congenital deformity and improve size and shape to enhance women's lives. Great strides have been made in the understanding of breast surgery and now the medical profession is beginning to apply these advances to one of the most dreaded of operations - mastectomy.

Today, effective mastectomy can be performed with far better cosmetic results. Since new breast cancer cases are among the highest rates ever recorded and breast cancer survival rates are also on the rise it is necessary for patients and their physicians to consider what treatment options will positively affect the patients' overall health, healing and quality of life, post cancer.

As the senior author in The American Surgeon study and founder of the Breast Preservation Foundation, Dr. Aronowitz hopes to also persuade the general surgery community to use plastic surgery principles for placement of incisions for biopsy and mastectomy procedures.

"Increased use of these modern, reconstructive surgery concepts will result in a decreased use of standard, centuries old 'cut across the chest' incisions causing severe disfigurement and long-lasting emotional distress for cancer patients. These are the most modern aesthetic techniques and principles that can be applied with the same rigor as is given to the treatment of cancer, and combined can result in a more satisfying outcome," Dr. Aronowitz added.

SOURCE Breast Preservation Foundation