UK expert to help in breast reconstruction

Chennai: About 1.20 lakh women are diagnosed with breast cancer in a year in India and of them, a vast majority are between the age group of 40 and 50 years.

“Nearly 80 per cent of them lose their breasts. We perform mastectomy, remove the whole breast, for various reasons, in­cl­u­ding the cost of radiotherapy and advanced stage of cancer, among others,” informs Dr Selvi Radha­krishna, breast surgeon, Chennai Breast Centre, MRC Nagar.

Women who lose breasts choose either external breast prosthesis or reconstruction. But doctors say breast reconstructions are minuscule here.

“Within plastic surgery, cleft lip and hand surgeries are well-developed, but not breast surgeries. It can be either cosmetic like breast augmentation or reconstructive surgery, which is after cancer treatment. Of all the cosmetic procedures done in the UK, one-third is breast augmentation. When it comes to cosmetic, we are bit more conservative but my concern is reconstruction as many women lose breasts after cancer,” says Dr Venkat V. Rama­kri­shnan, consultant plastic and cosmetic surgeon from the UK. Both doctors together provide treatment, reconstruction and rehabilitation post-surgery in the city.

Dr Ramakrishnan, who is in UK, plans to visit the ci­t­y often and provide the service.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in Britain in 2009 has said every woman after breast removal should be offered reconstruction.

“No age is easy to lose breasts. Recently, I performed mastectomy on an 83-year-old lady who was quite shocked after seeing her breasts removed,” says Dr Radhakrishna.
While most women prefer reconstruction, awareness about it is low and also whom to approach is a big question.

Reconstruction can be done using implants and from body tissue. “In DIEP flap reconstruction, one’s own fatty tissue from the abdomen is used to restore the breast.

In that way, tummy is also reduced and it looks natural,” says the cosmetic surgeon who does around 350-400 reconstructions of complex nature in the UK.

The cost of the recons­truction is around rS4 lak­h.­ “At present, the focus is on reconstruction. When it comes to co­s­metic, breast uplifting, augmentation and reduction are also done,” says Dr. Rama­krishnan.

As a majority of women diagnosed with breast ca­n­cer are very young, they hesitate to approach the doctor, fearing re­moval of breasts. “That’s why you see patients approaching in advanced stages. Many women do enquire about reconstruction,” informs the breast surgeon.