News
A reconstructive surgical option for women with breast cancer
Breast reconstruction can include breast implants — as well as fat and skin transferred from the lower abdomen.
But for patients like Brandi Surprenant — neither one was a viable option.
Treatment for breast cancer left her with few options.
Brandi explains, “You have a lot of skin inflammation after and implants sometimes do not really work well with radiated tissue.”
Researching potential solutions led her to Dr. Michael Alperovich at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven — three hundred miles away from upstate New York where she lives.
“I compare it to essentially doing a transplant within a patient’s body,” says Dr. Alperovich.
The procedure he offered — the Pap Flap.
He says, “The Pap Flap essentially is using upper thigh skin and fat and transferring that to create breast tissue.”
Source: WTNH News Channel 8