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1/4/04 - Partial Breast Reconstruction - Ivanhoe Newswire

HOUSTON (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Each year, close to 94,000 women are candidates for a lumpectomy to remove the small cancerous masses in their breast. While the procedure is less severe than a mastectomy, women could be left with a defect. Reconstruction has long been a very involved procedure because implants didn't fit the shape of the breast. Now, doctors have a better option.

Two years ago, Penny Pavlica thought she was having surgery to remove a cyst. "Well, when they went in to remove the cyst, they found cancer underneath it," she tells Ivanhoe. Doctors performed a lumpectomy. It's considered a breast-conserving procedure, but shrinkage and tightness from radiation can cause significant deformity.

Plastic surgeon Aldona Spiegel, M.D., of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, says, "I find that women that have a significant deformity after breast conservation are equal to women that have had a complete mastectomy in the way they feel about themselves."

The unusual shape of the missing area and skin make an implant impractical, so Dr. Spiegel offers women another option. "We're essentially using the skin and the fat from the abdominal area and matching it to whatever is required to reconstruct the area where the tumor was taken from." Unlike other reconstruction procedures, Dr. Spiegel says this procedure leaves the abdomen muscles intact. "We're climbing and trying to strive for a minimally-invasive surgery with the best benefit and the least loss of function."

Less cutting also means faster recovery. Most patients are back to regular activities in four weeks. Pavlica went back to running in just five weeks, and today, only has one regret. "I wish that I would not have waited a year to have it done," she says.

Dr. Spiegel says because this is such a delicate procedure, it takes longer than other reconstruction surgeries. Also, women need enough excess tissue in the abdomen for the procedure to be performed. Dr. Spiegel says about 70 percent of her patients are candidates.