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Breast reconstruction dangerous for obese patients |
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Wednesday, 18 October 2006 |
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Higher complications associated with obesity suggest that overweight patients who have undergone a mastectomy procedure should reduce their body weight before undergoing breast reconstruction surgery.
The study's author, Elisabeth Beahm, MD, ASPS Member Surgeon and associate professor at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, said that "while feeling 'whole' can be an integral part of recovery from cancer, significant concerns have been raised about the wisdom of doing breast reconstruction in very obese patients due to a high complication rate". The findings of the study, presented at the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Plastic Surgery 2006 conference in San Francisco, show that women who are significantly obese are at higher risk for complications and have a lower satisfaction rate than do normal and overweight patients undergoing breast reconstruction surgery.
Women with a body mass index of more than 35 experienced significantly greater complication rates for breast reconstruction procedures. This complication rate increased to nearly 100 percent for patients with a body mass index of over 40, considered as the threshold for morbid obesity.
Most of the complications in breast reconstruction procedures were associated with fluid collections and infection at the flap donor site and the reconstruction site itself. For obese patients, there is an increased risk of hernia and bulge of the abdominal wall, following the procedure in which the flap is harvested from the abdominal area.
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