October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer treatment and reconstruction is extremely challenging. Mastectomy reconstruction can be performed with DIEP flaps.
One of the more common questions that patients ask regarding flap reconstruction, is when do you use the skin from the abdomen and when do you use the skin that is already covering the breast.
The simple answer is that it depends on the amount and quality of skin present on the chest wall. In cases where the skin is radiated or damaged from multiple infections, then the skin on the chest wall is replaced with skin from the abdomen.
If the skin on the breast is not radiated and if there is an ample amount of skin, that skin is maintained and the DIEP flap is “de-skinned” and the remaining fat is placed beneath the breast skin.
