Breast reconstruction is the surgical process of rebuilding the shape and look of a breast, most commonly in women who have had surgery to treat breast cancer. It involves using autologous tissue, prosthetic implants, or a combination of both with the goal of reconstructing a natural-looking breast. This process often also includes the rebuilding of the nipple and areola, known as nipple-areola complex (NAC) reconstruction, as one of the final stages.
Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction, or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes craniofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns. While reconstructive surgery aims to reconstruct a part of the body or improve its functioning, cosmetic surgery aims to improve the appearance of it. A comprehensive definition of plastic surgery has never been established, because it has no distinct anatomical object and thus overlaps with practically all other surgical specialties. An essential feature of plastic surgery is that it involves the treatment of conditions that require or may require tissue relocation skills.
Tissue expansion is a technique used by plastic, maxillofacial and reconstructive surgeons to cause the body to grow additional skin, bone, or other tissues. Other biological phenomena such as tissue inflammation can also be considered expansion.
Phalloplasty is the construction or reconstruction of a penis or the artificial modification of the penis by surgery. The term is also occasionally used to refer to penis enlargement.
Breast augmentation and augmentation mammoplasty is a cosmetic surgery technique using breast-implants and fat-graft mammoplasty techniques to increase the size, change the shape, and alter the texture of the breasts. Although in some cases augementation mammoplasty is applied to correct congenital defects of the breasts and the chest wall in other cases it is used purely as a cosmetic surgery, primary breast augmentation changes the aesthetics – of size, shape, and texture – of healthy breasts.
A facelift, technically known as a rhytidectomy, is a type of cosmetic surgery procedure intended to give a more youthful facial appearance. There are multiple surgical techniques and exercise routines. Surgery usually involves the removal of excess facial skin, with or without the tightening of underlying tissues, and the redraping of the skin on the patient's face and neck. Exercise routines tone underlying facial muscles without surgery. Surgical facelifts are effectively combined with eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty) and other facial procedures and are typically performed under general anesthesia or deep twilight sleep.
Gluteoplasty denotes the plastic surgery and the liposuction procedures for the correction of congenital, traumatic, and acquired defects/deformities of the buttocks and the anatomy of the gluteal region; and for the aesthetic enhancement of the contour of the buttocks.
Capsular contracture is a response of the immune system to foreign materials in the human body. Medically, it occurs mostly in context of the complications from breast implants and artificial joint prosthetics.
A breast implant is a prosthesis used to change the size, shape, and contour of a person's breast. In reconstructive plastic surgery, breast implants can be placed to restore a natural looking breast following a mastectomy, to correct congenital defects and deformities of the chest wall or, cosmetically, to enlarge the appearance of the breast through breast augmentation surgery.
Mastopexy is the plastic surgery mammoplasty procedure for raising sagging breasts upon the chest of the woman, by changing and modifying the size, contour, and elevation of the breasts. In a breast-lift surgery to re-establish an aesthetically proportionate bust for the woman, the critical corrective consideration is the tissue viability of the nipple-areola complex (NAC), to ensure the functional sensitivity of the breasts for lactation and breast-feeding.
A DIEP flap is type of breast reconstruction where blood vessels, fat, and skin from the lower belly are relocated to the chest to rebuild breasts after mastectomy. DIEP stands for the deep inferior epigastric perforator artery, which runs through the abdomen. This is a type of autologous reconstruction, meaning one's own tissue is used.
Symmastia is a condition defined as a confluence of the breast tissue of both breasts across the intermammary cleft that normally divides them. It can be surgically corrected by a plastic surgeon through symmastia revision.
Tuberous breasts are a result of a congenital abnormality of the breasts which can occur in both men and women, one breast or both. During puberty breast development is stymied and the breasts fail to develop normally and fully. The exact cause of this is as yet unclear; however, a study in 2011 of the cells in the breasts of both males and females with tubular breasts suggested a genetic link in a disorder of collagen deposition. The condition is thought to affect one to five per cent of breast augmentation patients; however, the proportion of the general population affected is unknown as surgery is not always sought.
A lip lift, which in medical terms is known as 'SUBNASAL BULLHORN' is the most common plastic surgery procedure that modifies the cosmetic appearance of the lips, by reshaping them to increase the prominence of the vermilion border ; and to enhance the facial area above the lips into a more aesthetically pleasing shape. In corrective praxis, a lip lift procedure is distinguished from lip enhancement, the augmentation of the lips, which can be affected with a non-surgical procedure.
Trans-umbilical breast augmentation (TUBA) is a type of breast augmentation in which breast implants are placed through an incision at the navel rather than the chest.
Flap surgery is a technique in plastic and reconstructive surgery where tissue with an intact blood supply is lifted from a donor site and moved to a recipient site. Flaps are distinct from grafts, which do not have an intact blood supply and relies on the growth of new blood vessels. Flaps are done to fill a defect such as a wound resulting from injury or surgery when the remaining tissue is unable to support a graft, or to rebuild more complex anatomic structures like breasts or jaws.
Perforator flap surgery is a technique used in reconstructive surgery where skin and/or subcutaneous fat are removed from a distant or adjacent part of the body to reconstruct the excised part. The vessels that supply blood to the flap are isolated perforator(s) derived from a deep vascular system through the underlying muscle or intermuscular septa. Some perforators can have a mixed septal and intramuscular course before reaching the skin. The name of the particular flap is retrieved from its perforator and not from the underlying muscle. If there is a potential to harvest multiple perforator flaps from one vessel, the name of each flap is based on its anatomical region or muscle. For example, a perforator that only traverses through the septum to supply the underlying skin is called a septal perforator. Whereas a flap that is vascularised by a perforator traversing only through muscle to supply the underlying skin is called a muscle perforator. According to the distinct origin of their vascular supply, perforators can be classified into direct and indirect perforators. Direct perforators only pierce the deep fascia, they don't traverse any other structural tissue. Indirect perforators first run through other structures before piercing the deep fascia.
Free-flap breast reconstruction is a type of autologous-tissue breast reconstruction applied after mastectomy for breast cancer, without the emplacement of a breast implant prosthesis. As a type of plastic surgery, the free-flap procedure for breast reconstruction employs tissues, harvested from another part of the woman's body, to create a vascularised flap, which is equipped with its own blood vessels. Breast-reconstruction mammoplasty can sometimes be realised with the application of a pedicled flap of tissue that has been harvested from the latissimus dorsi muscle, which is the broadest muscle of the back, to which the pedicle (“foot”) of the tissue flap remains attached until it successfully grafts to the recipient site, the mastectomy wound. Moreover, if the volume of breast-tissue excised was of relatively small mass, breast augmentation procedures, such as autologous-fat grafting, also can be applied to reconstruct the breast lost to mastectomy.
Ted Eisenberg D.O. is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based plastic surgeon who specializes in cosmetic breast surgery. He holds a Guinness World Record for the most breast augmentation surgeries performed in a lifetime (male)— 3460.
Nipple delay, also known as nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM), is one of the surgical approaches for treating or preventing breast cancer. This surgery involves the removal of all breast tissue, except the nipple areolar complex (NAC), and the creation of new circulatory connections from the breast skin to NAC. By preserving the NAC, NSM has provided patients with higher cosmetic expectations and the opportunity to undergo a mastectomy while maintaining a more natural appearance.
