Fat Injections After Breast Reconstruction with Implant on Radiated Breast

I had laptoctomy, radiation. 2 years laler - mastactamy and breast reconstruction with expander.After surgery had infection, it was gone after treatment with antibiotics, expander was not removed, but breast shrunk. Quastion - how big risk is to have fat injections when I get permanent implant ?

Tags:

Comment on this

4 Doctor Answers | Asked by timetimetime in Los Angeles

Doctor Answers (4)
Community Comments (0)

Risk of fat injection on irradiated breast

There are two concerns with your situation. One is blood flow compromise because of radiation, and as fat injections are done, there might be further interference of blood flow. This can cause a complication. Secondly, there may be an increased risk of infection because of your history, and if the fat injections compromise the sterility of the new implant, it may need to be removed. Speak to your surgeon about these good questions.

Reconstruction of breast

I think you should finish your reconstruction. If you have enough skin, you could have an exchange for a permanent gel implant and a capsule release to allow for a more natural look. If you have any depressions after that, then a revision with fat injections would work well. During the exchange, you will probably need a collagen graft around the implant like Surgimend to decrease the complications that can arrise from the radiation you had.

Fat injection after breast reconstruction

I think that fat transfers may well help in your situation. It is a useful technique to augment the coverage over implants and can be used in the irradiated breast. I always worry about leaving an implant in when there has been infection though. I really do hope that it has all cleared up with the antibiotics, but I find that when you think that you have salvaged the implant, it can flare up again and need to be removed later. I wish you all the best... more

Fat injection for Irradiated breasts

The interesting thing is that fat injection seems to reverse some of the effects of radiation. There are reports of fat injection helping to heal radiation related wounds, and I have seen this in practice in my own patients. Fat also seems to improve breast capsules in several cases that I have used it. I don't think that we fully appreciate the benefits of fat grafting yet. The thinking that is currently going around is that fat contains stem cells that may account for these... more