DIEP Flap Breast Reconstruction After Mastectomy

Today, there are better options for breast reconstruction than ever before. Women who have undergone or plan to undergo mastectomy often face considerable emotional and psychological challenges. Breast reconstruction can help restore a woman's physical form and significantly improve quality of life. For women who wish to use their own tissue, rather than a breast implant, for reconstruction after mastectomy, sophisticated microsurgical techniques make it is possible to reconstruct breasts that restore a natural shape and feel without sacrificing important functional muscles. These sophisticated procedures, known collectively as perforator flaps, include the DIEP flap, SIEA flap and GAP flap.

Perforator flaps do not contain muscle. Using highly specialized microsurgical techniques, by which the blood vessels can be carefully separated from the muscle that normally surrounds them, an experienced perforator flap microsurgeon can reconstruct a breast with a woman's own tissue and not sacrifice important functional muscles.

In addition to giving you excellent cosmetic results without compromising important functional muscles, perforator-flap breast reconstruction offers several unique advantages:

A more natural look and feel to reconstructed breasts than can typically be obtained with implants

Less postoperative pain than is typically associated with reconstruction using flaps that include muscle

Reconstructed breasts that will grow and shrink naturally as one's weight changes, thereby keeping your reconstructed breast in proportion to your body

Possible connection of sensory nerves in a perforator flap to nerves at the mastectomy site to help restore sensation to the reconstructed breast

More rapid return to work and other activities than typically occurs following reconstruction with flaps that include muscle

A significantly lower rate of unplanned reoperation (only 5%), as compared to the approximately 50% rate reported for implants 7 years after reconstruction

Ability to reconstruct a breast after failure of an implant or other natural-tissue reconstruction, even after radiation

Although the websites of many plastic surgeons describe DIEP flap breast reconstruction, most plastic surgeons do not routinely perform these or other types of perforator flap breast reconstruction even if they perform microsurgery. In part, this is because most plastic surgery training programs do not provide significant exposure to these complex reconstructive procedures, but do provide extensive training in implant and TRAM flap reconstructions.

If you are considering perforator flap breast reconstruction, you may want to find out more information about your doctor's experience with these procedures. The highest degrees of success with these procedures are achieved by experienced surgeons who perform these procedures on a regular basis.