The nipple reinnervation (the nerve connection of it) after a breast reconstruction for cancer, which guarantees the erogenous sensitivity, is one of the most innovative areas of current surgeries. The Barcelona hospitals of Sant Pau and del Mar carry out an immediate reinnervation 75% of women who have breast reconstruction after removal for a tumor. Even so, many breast reconstructions are not performed immediately after the mastectomy, something that has a psychological impact on women, and experts claim to increase immediate breast reconstruction to at least 70% after the removal of a breast (currently in Spain the percentage is 50% and in Catalonia around 60 %), and whenever possible, reinnervation is performed.
He Joint Service of Plastic Surgery Hospital de Sant Pau-Hospital del Mar performs about 200 autologous breast reconstructions each year (that is, the tissue with which it is reconstructed is extracted from the same patient), which are the most complex, and in the last year they have increased by a 30% these interventions. These are figures presented this Wednesday within the framework of the Barcelona Breast Meeting (BBM), the reference breast surgery congress in Europe that will take place from today until Friday 24 at the Sant Pau Modernist Venue. More than 400 surgeons from more than 20 countries around the world will meet at the 20th edition of this congress.
“Today there is nothing that justifies not doing the breast reconstruction in the same operation where the tumor is operated. There are few cases in which it is justified to leave for later. 90% should be done immediately,” defends Jaume Masia, director of the Servei Mancomunat de Cirurgia Plàstica Hospital de Sant Pau-Hospital del Mar, which organizes this congress. In addition, thanks to a technique such as reinnervation, the patient “integrates this breast much more quickly, reduces the stigma of amputation and improves self-esteem and sexuality.”
According to Masià, the “objective” of these interventions is for the woman to “regain sensibility” and go back to being “the same as before”. “A mastectomy leaves physical and psychological sequelae. And the objective of reinnervation of the nipple is that the patient live your sexuality with the same joy with which you did before”, says this plastic surgeon.
Mental health
In a cancer such as breast cancer, high prevalence but also high survival rates, the great objective is that women who must undergo a mastectomy (removal of the breast) not only heal, but maintain a good mood, self-esteem and sexuality. In this, Masià insists, immediate breast reconstruction plays a fundamental role, which is practiced in the same surgical operation to remove the breast and which in rich European countries is applied in a 50% of the cases. “[La reconstrucción] it is part of the treatment of breast cancer”, defends this doctor.
According to this specialist, 90% of patients are candidates for immediate reconstruction and those that are not, it is because they have had many surgeries, present a weak state of health or they must do another treatment that can condition the reconstruction, so in these cases they wait a while”. The objective of the Department of Health is that the waiting list for these deferred reconstructions in time not exceed six months, points.
holistic treatment
Related news
Another issue addressed in the conclave of breast surgeons in Barcelona is the need to apply a holistic treatment oriented to the welfare of the patient, which goes beyond surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy or even the psychological support that is already provided to women suffering from cancer.
These are activities like meditation, acupuncture, yoga or nutrition, that can contribute to emotional well-being, to the reduction of pain and to the reduction of the consumption of analgesics and anxiolytics during the path that the patients travel from the beginning of the treatment until their total recovery.