Oncoplastic surgery combining abdominal advancement flaps with volume displacement techniques to breast-conserving surgery for small- to medium-sized breasts

Abstract

Background: An abdominal advancement flap (AAF) is a flap that pulls the elevated abdominal skin up, creating the shape of the inferior portion of the breast by making a neo-inframammary fold. We used an AAF combined with volume displacement techniques to fill the defect left after breast-conserving surgery (BCS). Methods: Forty-one small- to medium-sized breast patients whose resection area included the lower portion of the breast underwent this procedure from October 2010 to December 2014. We evaluated efficacy of this procedure. Results: The excision volume ranged from 10 to 35 %. Complications after surgery were observed in two patients (partial necrosis of the nipple-areola complex and partial necrosis of the breast skin in one patient each). There was no fat necrosis of the flap in any of the patients. The cosmetic results were found to be excellent in 7 cases, good in 23, fair in 9 and poor in 2. In 11 cases with an unacceptable outcome, 9 cases were in the inner portion. In patients with the tumor in the inner portion, the proportion of unacceptable cases was 50 %. In the cases other than the inner portion, the proportion of unacceptable cases was 8.7 % (p < 0.01). In the cases with larger breasts, unacceptable cases were more frequently observed (p < 0.05). Conclusions: We believe that an AAF combined with volume displacement techniques may be useful following BCS in the lower portion of a small- to medium-sized breast, except in cases where the tumors is located in the inner potion.