One of the most drastic and lingering affects women face after surviving breast cancer are the changes done to their body after undergoing a mastectomy. After a mastectomy, women may be left with uneven or otherwise misshapen breasts. Many women choose to wear padded bras and other clothing to mask the remnants of their mastectomy. But even so, women may feel that a significant part of their femininity and identity has been lost after breast cancer.

To help heal the emotional scars that breast cancer leaves behind, many doctors regularly offer breast reconstruction to cancer survivors. Breast reconstruction, which is both similar to and different from cosmetic breast augmentation, can help restore the shape and fullness of a woman’s breasts after a mastectomy in a way that is safe and natural-looking. To onlookers, the change may be subtle—but to the patient, having the volume and wholeness in body that they enjoyed before going through breast cancer can be dramatically therapeutic.

If implants are used, they can sometimes be inserted immediately after the mastectomy, but in some cases, patients should wait until the skin and tissue of the chest has adjusted and any radiation treatments have been completed. While breast implants are intended to be permanent, they can be surgically removed down the road, if needed.

The first step to undergoing breast reconstruction surgery is to consult with a plastic surgeon. Restoring a woman’s breast to their pre-surgery condition requires in-depth assessment of the woman’s body and careful selection of techniques and implant type, size, and shape. For example, Dr. Amy Bandy, a Newport Beach breast reconstruction specialist who often works with breast cancer survivors, lavishes great attention to detail during the consultation phase in order to ensure that a woman feels like herself after the procedure is complete. In this way, breast reconstruction can play an integral role in recovering from breast cancer.

Radiologist at X-Ray and Diagnostic Ultrasound Consultants Ltd. (XDUCL), Dr. Winston Clarke, said doctors have always been aware of the limitations of mammograms, which prompted the search for an alternative. Dr. Clarke explained that for every 100 women tested with mammograms, only about 80 of them will be diagnosed correctly. The other 20% of tests are usually inconclusive and the patients will be asked to come back to do the test at a later date.

Where mammograms are X-rays that examine tissue density, the technology used by the BSGI will detect cancer cells independent of tissue density. The patient will be injected with a small dosage of radioactive Isotopetyechnetium (used similarly to the tissue dyes utilized in X-rays and conventional mammograms) which will be absorbed by the cells. The BSGI will highlight the cancerous cells, similar to thermal imaging, so that cancers as small as three millimetres can be easily detected. The entire procedure can take up to an hour and will be pain-free because no weight is placed on the breast.

Will Breast Implants Affect BSGI Breast Cancer Screening?

The BSGI system will be used in cases where further evaluation beyond a mammogram is needed for the detection of cancer such as cases where the patient has dense breast tissue, multiple and suspicious lesions, post-surgical or post therapeutic masses, breast implants or for women who are taking Hormone Replacement Therapy.

Professor Douglas Kieper, Director of Clinical Research and Education at Dilon Technologies, said the BSGI system will also be able to help doctors predict a patient’s reaction to chemotherapy and will make dealing with breast cancer and subsequent reconstruction (when necessary) less challenging.

“We are actually looking at a phenomenon within itself,” he said. “It is a very specific technique which can contribute in a good way to the patient’s treatment.”

Even though the system is being endorsed by a number of doctors including Chief Medical Officer at the Jamaican Ministry of Health and Environment, Dr. Sheila Campbell-Forrester, Dr. Clarke cites a number of pressing challenges with “bringing first world technology to Jamaica”. Paramount among them is the cost to perform the procedure. Currently BSGI costs between the equivalent of J$80,000-$120,000 in the United States to get the test done. Dr. Clarke, however, wants to find the means to offer it for about $45,000 so that more women can be tested. Currently a mammogram costs around $3,500.

Among the cost-related concerns, the supplies needed to conduct the procedure will have to be imported from the United States every two weeks. This includes the radioactive Isotopetyechnetium, which has a brief two-week shelf life. Dr. Clarke said they are also trying to get the insurance companies to come on board to cover the cost for patients who really need the test. In spite of all these challenges, Dr. Clarke said the possibility of saving a life with the machine is more important.

No area of research in the medical and scientific communities has created as much of a debate as stem cell therapy. Despite the positive research results that stem cells have the potential to treat many different types of conditions including stroke, paralysis and birth defects, there is much contention surrounding the use of embryonic stem cells.

More recent stem cell research being conducted, however, is focusing on using (non-embryonic) stem cells derived from the patient’s own body. This research has shown promise for a variety of medical therapy options, including treating brain injuries in rats.

Thus far, scientists in the UK have been working on the new method exclusively for treating women with breast deformities caused by cancer and its subsequent treatment. The process involves harvesting stem cells from fat located around the woman’s stomach or thighs using highly specialized equipment. The stem cells than can then be mixed with another batch of fat from the patient’s body before being injected into the breasts.

The researchers claim that it can take several months before the breast achieves the desired shape and size. Researcher and breast augmentation consultant Professor Kefah Mokbel from the London Breast Institute, who is in charge of the project, will treat 10 patients from May. He predicts private patients will be able to pay for the procedure within about six months, at a cost of about £6,500 (approximately $9500.00, USD).

“This is a very exciting advance in breast surgery,” said Mokbel. “They [breasts treated with stem cells] feel more natural because this tissue has the same softness as the rest of the breast. Implants are a foreign body. They are associated with long-term complications and require replacement. They can also leak and cause scarring.”

Not all medical professionals are in agreement, however, that the new technique is quite ready for public use. Says Los Angeles plastic surgeon, Dr. Steven Teitelbaum, M.D.:

“Everyone expects to see major advances in these areas in the coming years,” “No doubt, this is the future of plastic surgery. But it is not yet the present.”

The use of stem cells in healthy women undergoing cosmetic plastic surgery is controversial, to say the very least. Medical boards and top physicians alike have warned that the breast enlargements should not be offered to healthy women until large-scale trials in cancer patients have shown that the new procedure is safe and effective. The treatment is not yet available to women solely for cosmetic purposes.

Eva Weiler-Mithoff, a consultant and plastic surgeon at Canniesburn hospital in Glasgow, is co-leading the British wing of a European trial of stem cell therapy for women who have been left with post-cancer breast deformities. So far more than a dozen British cancer patients have been treated and Weiler-Mithoff is impressed with the results. She does not believe this justifies offering the treatment to healthy women, however. According to Weiler-Mithoff, while breast cancer patients regularly attend follow-up appointments, young women who have had cosmetic surgery are less likely to do so and complications could be missed.

The same technique, however, has been used in Japan for six years, initially to treat women with breast deformities caused by cancer treatment and, more recently, for cosmetic breast augmentation in healthy women.

Until now, when fat was transplanted to the breast without extra stem cells (a procedure commonly known as fat grafting or transfer), surgeons had difficulty maintaining a blood supply to the new tissue. Surgeons believe the increased concentration of stem cells under this technique promotes the growth of blood vessels to ensure a sufficient blood supply circulates to the transplanted fat cells.

Mokbel is confident the therapy is safe and that, after carrying out about 30 procedures, the London Breast Institute will be able to offer the procedure to private patients. Mokbel says that he believes only modest increases in size can be achieved using the stem cell process and points out that only gains in cup size will be made, no improvement in firmness and uplift will be achieved. Or not yet, at least.

The entertainment world was stunned this past August when the star of ABC’s “Samantha Who?”, Christina Applegate announced that she had breast cancer and was set to undergo a double mastectomy to combat the disease. An outpouring of support and well-wishes from fans and women who had undergone the same circumstances followed as she embarked on course of action that for her, “seemed the most logical.”

During her treatments, doctors detected the presence of “CDH1″, a rare genetic mutation that placed her at an extremely high risk for cancer to spread or return, and despite the fact that cancer was only discovered in one breast, she, like a growing number of breast cancer victims, chose to have both breasts removed as a precautionary measure.

“I didn’t want to go back to the doctors every four months,” she says. “I wanted to be rid of it. For me this was the choice I made and it was a tough one.”

What may seem like a drastic step to some, becomes a reasonable decision for patients like Applegate who have the CDH1 gene.

“There’s around a 50% chance of having a recurrence in 5 years, and possibly a 60% chance of developing cancer by the age of 70,” says Dr. Steven Schonholz, Medical Director at Mercy Medical Center’s Breast Care Center.

While it isn’t known what type of Breast Reconstruction she’s had, following her Mastectomy, she is an ideal candidate for tissue expansion (a reconstructive procedure, using the patient’s own tissue) or breast implants, given her age, figure and medical history.

So, where is Applegate now, in terms of her health and state of mind?

“I’m clear. Absolutely 100-percent clear and clean it did not spread, they got everything out.” She added in a Good Morning America interview, following her reconstructive procedure: “I’m going to have cute boobs til I’m 90”.

We here at Breast Implants Info wish Ms. Applegate well and hope that she enjoys many happy and healthy years to come.

Given the controversy and debate that seems to always surround plastic surgery, we want to know where you stand on plastic surgery for reconstructive purposes. Share your thoughts (or your own personal story) about Breast Implants, Reconstructive and Plastic Surgery, by leaving us some comments.