Before and after right delayed implant reconstruction in a 71 year old woman. She required a mastectomy on the right for an advanced breast cancer. She completed her breast cancer treatment before she felt ready to have reconstruction, which included chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
She waited a year after radiation before having reconstruction surgery. Her goal was to match her left breast, which she felt very strongly she wanted to leave alone. An implant was placed through her mastectomy incision as a single stage immediate implant. In this case, the full sized low profile silicone gel implant was placed as she wanted to avoid multiple surgeries. This procedure took less than an hour as a straightforward outpatient procedure, and she had a drain in for less than one week.
She was also a candidate for additional procedures such as evening out the nipple position by lifting the left nipple to match the right one, liposuction of her axillary rolls to remove excess fat, and free fat grafting to fill in a hollow around the breast implant, but she declined “getting fancier than we need to”.
Follow up photos are shown 6 weeks after delayed implant reconstruction. She has greatly improved symmetry and she is ready to move forward after her breast cancer treatment.
*All photos are actual patient photographs and are for illustrative purposes only. Individual results may vary.
