Post mastectomy immediate breast reconstruction 13 years experience in a single centre

Early diagnosis and multi-modality treatment has resulted in prolonged survival of many patients with carcinoma of breast. It is important that the surgeons who handle breast malignancies look at the psychological and cosmetic aspects without compromising the oncologic principles of surgery in carcinoma of the breast. Post mastectomy immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) addresses the psychological and cosmetic problems that follow mastectomy. There are various techniques available for post mastectomy primary breast reconstruction. The technique should be affordable to the large number of economically poor patients and should be less time consuming. During the period of 13 years from January 1996 to December 2008, we have operated 2932 cases of carcinoma breast, of which 546 patients had IBR using various procedures. In our centre, TRAM flap was found to be the best procedure for post mastectomy immediate breast reconstruction. Immediate reconstruction whenever possible is the best option. Presence of the tissue used for reconstruction was not found to affect any form of local adjuvant treatment like radiotherapy, or delay the detection of local recurrent disease.