A process for quantifying aesthetic and functional breast surgery: II. Applying quantified dimensions of the skin envelope to design and preoperative planning for mastopexy and breast reduction.

BACKGROUND: A previous submission defined methods to objectively define nipple position and vertical and horizontal skin excess in mastopexy and breast reduction. This article defines a set of second-stage processes for quantified design and operative planning for skin envelope modification. METHODS: A skin envelope modification procedure (periareolar, periareolar plus vertical, or periareolar plus vertical plus horizontal) was selected based on the quantified amount of vertical skin excess. This process was applied in 124 consecutive mastopexy and 122 consecutive breast reduction cases. Average follow-up was 4.6 years (range, 6 to 14 years). RESULTS: All cases were assessed, planned, and executed applying the processes in this article. No patient required nipple repositioning. Complications included excessive lower pole restretch (4 percent), periareolar scar hypertrophy (0.8 percent), hematoma (1.2 percent), and areolar shape irregularities (1.6 percent). Delayed healing at the junction of vertical and horizontal scars occurred in two reduction patients [two of 124 (1.6 percent)], neither of which required revision. The overall reoperation rate was 6.5 percent (16 of 246) for patients in the first 5 years of the study and decreased to 1.6 percent for patients from year 6 through year 14. CONCLUSIONS: This study defines processes for using objectively defined parameters for skin envelope modification in mastopexy and breast reduction. Quantifying desired skin envelope design enables surgeons to objectively quantify vertical skin excess and horizontal skin excess, select envelope modification design and techniques based on those parameters, and evaluate outcomes based on objective clinical measurements in both mastopexy and breast reduction. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, IV.

A process for quantifying aesthetic and functional breast surgery: I. Quantifying optimal nipple position and vertical and horizontal skin excess for mastopexy and breast reduction.

BACKGROUND: This article defines a comprehensive process using quantified parameters for objective decision making, operative planning, technique selection, and outcomes analysis in mastopexy and breast reduction, and defines quantified parameters for nipple position and vertical and horizontal skin excess. Future submissions will detail application of the processes for skin envelope design and address composite, three-dimensional parenchyma modification options. METHODS: Breast base width was used to define a proportional, desired nipple-to-inframammary fold distance for optimal aesthetics. Vertical and horizontal skin excess were measured, documented, and used for technique selection and skin envelope design in mastopexy and breast reduction. This method was applied in 124 consecutive mastopexy and 122 consecutive breast reduction cases. Average follow-up was 4.6 years (range, 6 to 14 years). RESULTS: No changes were made to the basic algorithm of the defined process during the study period. No patient required nipple repositioning. Complications included excessive lower pole restretch (4 percent), periareolar scar hypertrophy (0.8 percent), hematoma (1.2 percent), and areola shape irregularities (1.6 percent). Delayed healing at the junction of vertical and horizontal scars occurred in two of 124 reduction patients (1.6 percent), neither of whom required revision. The overall reoperation rate was 6.5 percent (16 of 246). CONCLUSIONS: This study defines the first steps of a comprehensive process for using objectively defined parameters that surgeons can apply to skin envelope design for mastopexy and breast reduction. The method can be used in conjunction with, or in lieu of, other described methods to determine nipple position.

Diagnosis and management of seroma following breast augmentation: an update.

This article is an update to the decision and management algorithms for management of periprosthetic space infection or seroma following breast augmentation, originally published in "Decision and Management Algorithms to Address Patient and Food and Drug Administration Concerns Regarding Breast Augmentation and Implants," published in the October 2004 issue of this Journal. This update specifically addresses additional diagnosis and management alternatives for management of seroma in breast augmentation patients that may relate to lymphoproliferative disorders or anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

High- and extra-high-projection breast implants: potential consequences for patients.

All breast implants can potentially have deleterious effects on patients' tissues. Limiting negative tissue consequences and potential uncorrectable deformities requires that surgeons be aware and educate patients regarding potential consequences of various implant designs. High-profile implants have been available for decades, and during the current decade, extra-high-profile implants have become available, but no valid peer-reviewed and published studies have compared the potential tissue consequences of these designs to those of other breast implant designs. Valid comparative studies are exceedingly difficult to perform because of the number of variables that must be addressed to establish valid comparative cohorts. Nevertheless, the potential occurrence of negative tissue consequences from high- and extra-high-profile implants in primary breast augmentation and breast augmentation reoperation cases is well known to experienced aesthetic breast surgeons. This article addresses potential negative effects on patients' tissues of high- and extra-high-profile breast implants used for breast augmentation. This Special Topic article is not structured or intended as a scientific article. It is written as a Special Topic and not an Editorial at the editor's request. The cases presented are selected examples to illustrate potential clinical eventualities. The rate of occurrence of uncorrectable tissue deformities relates directly to surgeon and patient awareness of the potential consequences of implant selection decisions and requests. To minimize risks of negative tissue consequences for patients, surgeon awareness, patient education, and optimal implant selection decision processes are essential.

Five critical decisions in breast augmentation using five measurements in 5 minutes: the high five decision support process.

BACKGROUND: Surgeons' decisions impact patient outcomes and implant effects on tissues over time. Tissue assessment systems that provide quantitative, objective data enable objective rather than subjective decisions. First-generation dimensional systems for breast augmentation defined a desired result dimensionally and recommended an implant to force tissues to the desired result. A second-generation system, the TEPID system, defines measurements to match the implant to the patient's tissue characteristics, instead of forcing tissues to a desired result. This study defines a third-generation decision support process that prioritizes five critical decisions, identifies five key measurements, and completes all preoperative assessment and operative planning decisions in breast augmentation in 5 minutes or less. METHODS: Key decision parameters and data from more than 2300 primary augmentations planned using the TEPID system were analyzed to define the five most critical decisions that affect reoperation rates and risks of uncorrectable deformities and to define a decision support process using five critical measurements. RESULTS: In 1664 cases with up to 7 years of follow-up, the overall reoperation rate was 3 percent, and the reoperation rate for implant size exchange was 0.2 percent. The junior author's (Adams) clinical experience includes more than 300 augmentations with up to 6 years of follow-up using this system, with an overall reoperation rate of 2.8 percent. CONCLUSION: The High Five decision support process prioritizes five critical decisions in breast augmentation and enables surgeons to address all preoperative assessment and operative planning decisions in breast augmentation in 5 minutes or less.

Axillary endoscopic breast augmentation: processes derived from a 28-year experience to optimize outcomes.

BACKGROUND: The axillary approach for breast augmentation has been an option for patients and surgeons for three decades. This article reports a 28-year experience with axillary subpectoral and submammary breast augmentation, and defines proved processes and surgical techniques that have evolved during that experience. METHODS: From 1977 to 2005, 690 patients aged 19 to 64 years (median age, 31 years) chose the axillary augmentation approach for breast augmentation. Eighty-four patients had implants placed in the retromammary pocket location, 294 patients had partial retropectoral placement, and 312 patients had dual plane placement. Preoperative planning and implant selection after 1993 utilized dimensional and tissue-based processes published in this Journal. RESULTS: Using optimal published processes and instrumentation via the axillary approach, surgeons can deliver equally aesthetic results with equal recovery, reoperation rates, and complications compared with every other incision approach. Refinements in surgical techniques and instrumentation enable patients to predictably experience 24-hour return to normal activities after axillary subpectoral or submammary augmentation. CONCLUSIONS: The axillary incision approach for retromammary, partial retropectoral, and dual plane augmentation is an option for patients and surgeons who wish to locate the incision off the breast. Optimal outcomes and 24-hour recovery require a specific surgeon skill set, dimension and tissue-based preoperative planning, and implant selection, defining the desired level of the inframammary fold using proved processes and optimal instrumentation and minimizing tissue trauma and bleeding by implementing proved processes described in this article.

Dual plane breast augmentation: optimizing implant-soft-tissue relationships in a wide range of breast types.

In breast augmentation, surgeons usually choose a pocket location for the implant behind breast parenchyma (retromammary), partially behind the pectoralis major muscle (partial retropectoral), or totally behind pectoralis major and serratus (total submuscular). Each of these implant pocket locations has specific indications, but each also has a unique set of tradeoffs. When applied to a wide range of breast types, each pocket location has limitations. Glandular ptotic and constricted lower pole breasts offer unique challenges that often are not solved without tradeoffs when using a strictly retromammary, partial retropectoral, or total submuscular pocket. This article describes specific indications and techniques for a dual plane approach to breast augmentation in several different breast types, introducing techniques that combine retromammary and partial retropectoral pocket locations in a single patient to optimize the benefits of each pocket location while limiting the tradeoffs and risks of a single pocket location. A total of 468 patients had dual plane augmentation between January of 1992 and March of 1998 using the specific techniques of dual plane augmentation described in this article. All patients were treated as outpatients and received general anesthesia. Indications, operative techniques, results, and complications for this series of patients are presented. Dual plane augmentation mammaplasty adjusts implant and tissue relationships to ensure adequate soft-tissue coverage while optimizing implant-soft-tissue dynamics to offer increased benefits and fewer tradeoffs compared with a single pocket location in a wide range of breast types.

Achieving a predictable 24-hour return to normal activities after breast augmentation: part II. Patient preparation, refined surgical techniques, and instrumentation.

The goal of this study was to develop practices that would allow patients undergoing subpectoral augmentation to predictably return to full normal activities within 24 hours after the operation, free of postoperative adjuncts. Part I of this study used motion and time study principles to reduce operative times, medication dosages, perioperative morbidity, and recovery times in augmentation mammaplasty. Part II of the study focuses on details of patient education, preoperative planning, instrumentation, and surgical technique modifications that were identified, modified, and implemented to achieve the results reported in part I. Two groups of 16 patients each (groups 1 and 2) were studied retrospectively for comparison to a third group of 627 patients (group 3) studied prospectively. Patients in group 1 had axillary partial retropectoral breast augmentations in 1982-1983, using dissociative anesthesia, blunt instrument implant pocket dissection, and Dow Corning, double-lumen implants containing 20 mg of methylprednisolone and 20 cc of saline in the outer lumen of the implants. Patients in group 2 (1990) had inframammary, retromammary augmentations by using a combination of blunt and electrocautery dissection, Surgitek Replicon polyurethane-covered, silicone gel-filled implants, and general endotracheal anesthesia. Patients in group 3 (1998 to 2001, n = 627) had inframammary partial retropectoral, inframammary retromammary, and axillary partial retropectoral augmentations under general endotracheal anesthesia. Refined practices and surgical techniques from studies of groups 1 and 2 were applied in group 3. Videotapes from operative procedures of groups 1 and 2 were analyzed with macromotion and micromotion study principles, and tables of events were formulated for each move during the operation for all personnel in the operating room. Extensive details of surgical technique were examined and reexamined in 13 different stages by using principles of motion and time studies described in part I of this study to maximize efficiency without any change in quality. Unnecessary or unproductive motions and techniques were progressively eliminated, and essential, productive techniques were streamlined to eliminate wasted time and motion. Instrumentation and surgical techniques were evaluated in detail and modified to minimize bleeding and tissue trauma. Detailed data were presented in part I of this study that document shorter operative times, recovery times, time to discharge home, and time to return to normal activities. This part focuses on the patient education, preoperative planning, instrumentation, and surgical technique changes that were implemented on the basis of the findings in part I of the study. More extensive patient information integrated with staged informed consent resulted in a more in formed and confident patient. Applying motion and time study principles to analysis and refinement of instrumentation and surgical techniques resulted in a substantial reduction in perioperative morbidity and a simpler, shorter 24-hour return to full normal activity for 96 percent of the patients undergoing breast augmentation in group 3 compared with groups 1 and 2. More than 96 percent of patients in group 3 were able to return to normal activities, lift their arms above their heads, lift normal-weight objects, and drive their car within 24 hours after their partial retropectoral breast augmentation. Patient education, preoperative planning, instrumentation, and surgical technique modifications based on motion and time study video analyses reduced surgical trauma and bleeding, reduced perioperative morbidity, and allowed 96 percent of 627 breast augmentation patients in group 3 a predictable return to full, normal activity in 24 hours or less. Specific surgical factors that contributed to these results included (1) prospective hemostasis techniques with a zero tolerance for even the smallest amount of bleeding, (2) strict "no-touch" techniques for periosteum and perichondrium, (3) eliminating all blunt dissection, (4) performing all dissection under direct vision, (5) modified and simplified instrumentation, and (6) optimal use of muscle relaxants during subpectoral dissection.

Achieving a zero percent reoperation rate at 3 years in a 50-consecutive-case augmentation mammaplasty premarket approval study.

BACKGROUND: Excessively high reoperation rates in breast augmentation premarket approval studies are a major concern of patients and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Over the past two decades, reoperation rates have remained between 13 and 20 percent at 3 years in three different premarket approval studies for three different types of implant devices, indicating that high reoperation rates are not device dependent. The hypothesis of this study was that implementing specific peer-reviewed and published processes can significantly reduce reoperation rates in a premarket approval study. METHODS: Fifty consecutive primary breast augmentation patients were enrolled in a premarket approval study for the Inamed Style 410 form stable, cohesive gel implant. All patients were treated specifically according to the premarket approval protocol. The series was monitored throughout the study by an independent clinical review organization and by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspection of the patient records on site at the author's practice. Specific content and processes were applied to patient management in patient education and informed consent, patient and surgeon decision-making processes, preoperative assessment and operative planning, implant selection based on individual patient tissue characteristics, surgical techniques, and postoperative care techniques. RESULTS: Follow-up was 100 percent (50 of 50 patients) at 1 year, 98 percent (49 of 50 patients) at 2 years (one patient could not be reached), and 94 percent (47 of 50 patients) at 3 years. No reoperations were performed on any patient followed at 3 years in the 50-consecutive-patient series. CONCLUSION: Implementing the peer-reviewed and published processes described in this study, no reoperations were performed in a prospective 50-consecutive-case series of primary augmentation mammaplasty patients in a premarket approval study with 94 percent follow-up at 3 years.