Breast surgical oncologist Dr. Bonnie Sun and plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr. Lily Mundy discuss the benefits of oncoplastic surgery, who is a candidate, as well as the risks of surgery.
There are two main benefits for uncle plastic surgery benefit. Number one will be uncle logic, surgical outcome. Um In particular re excision rate will be significantly lower because we're able to take to take bigger margins of normal tissue. So my personal review of records show that unless the patient has tumor spanning greater than five centimeter in size, the re excision rate for that group of patients is less than 1% which is a lot less than average lumpectomy. Re excision rate that approaches around 20%. But for patients who have a lot bigger tumor even greater than five centimeters in size, we are sometimes able to save the breast by doing uncle plastic surgery. Number two is well we mentioned earlier, sometimes we can save the breast if the patient feels that that is beneficial for their quality of life and if that's what they're looking for. So that can be a main one of the main difference in the quality of life from having breasts versus no breasts From referring physician standpoint, it is hard to know who would benefit from alka plastic surgery. So I would say if the patient is a candidate for a lumpectomy and they have a desire to change to a smaller size or be more lifted as part of this operation, then the patient may be a good candidate for an al plastic procedure. Having said that the breast surgeon and the plastic surgeon together will have to evaluate the patient and find out more about the patient and what they desire and what they're looking for. In order to make a final decision about the surgery. The incisions that are used for ankle. Plastic breast surgery vary a little bit based on the patient's breast shape, size, the position of their nipple, the position of the of the breast tumor and the overall size of the tumor. However, most patients will end up with the peri areola incision or scar that goes circumferential around the areola and then depending on those factors, patients may also end up with an incision pattern that has a vertical line that goes from the inferior portion or the bottom portion of the areola down to the breast fold. And then some patients will additionally have an incision along the breast fold or the infirmary fold or I. M. F. There are few downsides of having uncle plastic surgery because it is surgery and it is done on top of cancer removal. It is a bigger surgery than a regular lumpectomy. Regular lumpectomy will have shorter incision length and won't change the breast as much and the recovery time is faster. But for uncle plastic surgery because we have to remodel and reshape the breast on both sides. The incisions will be on both sides and they will be longer. So patients will have to be okay with having a bigger surgery and longer incision. They have to be prepared for that. So. They're not surprised at the end of the surgery. Uncle plastic breast surgery is a really common way that we treat breast cancer For patients, and it's something that we do on a weekly basis here.