Transaxillary Breast Augmentation Study
Breast Implants, Techniques Comments (1)
When plastic surgeons perform a breast enhancement by inserting breast implants, they have four choices for making an incision:
- In the areola, the dark ring surrounding the nipple
- In the bottom of the breast where it meets the chest wall
- Through the belly button
- Through the patient’s arm pit
A new article in the International Journal of Surgical Reconstruction, a professional magazine for physicians, studied 98 breast augmentations which had been done via the arm pit.
The method is technically known as the transaxillary approach.
Chinese plastic surgeons did the study because most breast enhancements start with an incision in the areola or in the inframammary crease, the place where the breast meets the chest wall.
But Chinese women -like African-Americans, Latinas, American Indians and other people of color – are prone to problem scars like hyperplastic scars.
Because the doctors must reach the breast from the patient’s armpit, they use a special instrument, an endoscope, to tunnel under the skin. The endoscope lights and shows the way with a tiny camera and a set of small surgical tools.
Those surgeons, working at a plastic surgery hospital affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, prefer to place the breast implant under the patient’s chest muscle.
Why?
Studies show implants under the chest muscle look more natural and are prone to fewer complications like capsular contracture, the most common type of scarring in breast augmentations.
The surgeons use silicone jel implants. Unlike saline — which can be filled after implanting — silicone implants require a slightly larger incision about one and one-half inches long. The transaxillary method also avoids injuries to the nerves in breast skin and nipples.
The patients were evaluated at six and 12 months after the operation. Results? No complications like infection, bleeding, scarring or capsular contractor were found. (Read more about the transaxillary breast augmentation study.)
What type breast augmentation would you favor?
admin @ February 13, 2009
[...] Some patients don’t heal well from his approach. (See our previous post about transaxillary incisions.) Also, surgeons have very particular rules about shaving and deodorants both before and after a [...]