Breast Reconstruction:

Many women who have a #mastectomy—surgery to remove an entire breast to treat or prevent #breast #cancer—have the option of having the shape of the removed breast rebuilt.

Whatever your age, relationship status, sexual activity, or orientation, you can't predict how you will react to losing a breast. It’s normal to feel anxious, uncertain, sad, and mournful about giving up a part of your body that was one of the hallmarks of becoming a woman: a significant part of your sexuality, what made you look good in clothes, how you might have fed your babies. No one can ever take that away from you. Moving forward, you now have the opportunity to determine what you want to have happen next. But first you must do some careful thinking and delving into your feelings in order to figure out what is best for you.

#Surgery to reconstruct the breasts can be done at the time of the #mastectomy (which is called immediate reconstruction) or it can be done after the mastectomy incisions have healed and breast cancer #therapy has been completed (which is called delayed reconstruction). Delayed reconstruction can happen months or even years after the mastectomy. #Implants are inserted underneath the skin or chest muscle following the mastectomy. In #autologous tissue reconstruction, a piece of tissue containing skin, fat, blood vessels, and sometimes muscle is taken from elsewhere in a woman’s body and used to rebuild the #breast. This piece of tissue is called a #flap. After the chest heals from reconstruction surgery and the position of the breast mound on the chest wall has had time to stabilize, a #surgeon can reconstruct the nipple and areola. Usually, the new nipple is created by cutting and moving small pieces of skin from the reconstructed breast to the nipple site and shaping them into a new nipple.

Several factors can influence the type of #reconstructive surgery a woman chooses. These include the size and shape of the breast that is being rebuilt, the woman’s age and health, her history of past surgeries, #surgical risk factors.

Register for the Scientific sessions @ Breast Cancer Summit 2018 Conference in July 16-17, 2018 at #Melbourne, #Australia &kindly submit #abstract for #Oral/#poster

For more information: https://breastcancer.cancersummit.org/

Email @ breastcancersummit@oncologyseries.com