Natural Tissue Breast Reconstruction for Thin People
Melissa Chefec
By Dr. Constance M. Chen, Feb 23, 2023
Autologous tissue breast reconstruction creates soft, warm, and living breasts from a woman’s own body tissue, and many consider it to be the gold standard in breast reconstruction. Despite this, many thin women report that they have been told that their only option for breast reconstruction is implants because they do not have enough fat to undergo natural tissue breast reconstruction. Why are thin women being turned away? Even among specialists, many plastic surgeons are primarily familiar with the abdomen as a donor site for breast reconstruction—and many thin women have minimal abdominal fat. Breast reconstruction using abdominal flaps, such as the TRAM or DIEP flaps, transfer fat, skin, and blood vessels—and in the case of the TRAM flap, the rectus abdominis muscle, too—from the lower abdomen to the chest to build the new breast, and they are the most common options for autologous tissue breast reconstruction.
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