World-Renowned Plastic Surgeons Publish Results of New Procedure for Breast Reconstruction

NEW ORLEANS, March 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Leading breast reconstruction surgeons Frank J. DellaCroce, M.D., FACS, Scott K. Sullivan, M.D., FACS, and Chris Trahan, M.D., have recently published their groundbreaking work and pioneering description of a new technique that allows for women historically considered too thin for breast reconstruction with their own tissue to undergo their procedure with high success rates.  The manuscript, “Stacked Deep Inferior Epigastric Perforator Flap Breast Reconstruction: A Review of 110 Flaps in 55 Cases over 3 Years,” was published in the March 2011 Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.  

“Breast reconstruction continues to evolve,” state the world-renowned surgeons .  “The Deep Inferior Epigastric Perforator (DIEP) flap is a well-described means of providing natural tissue reconstruction with an attendant goal of preserving muscle structure in the abdominal donor site.  The purpose of reviewing these data, compiled from three years of surgeries, was to evaluate the effectiveness and reproducibility of this new procedure.  The development of this technique was based on the desire to provide natural tissue reconstruction for women lacking the abdominal fatty volume for a routine DIEP or TRAM flap procedure.  Our results showed the use of the stacked DIEP flap in a large number of patients with high success rates and superb aesthetic outcomes over a relatively short period of time. Of the 55 patients who underwent reconstruction using 110 flaps, all enjoyed successful outcomes.”

Doctors DellaCroce, Sullivan and Trahan are international leaders in all breast cancer surgery options and have pioneered many of the revolutionary procedures at the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery, and have refined breast reconstruction into methods that now represent the state-of-the-art choice in breast reconstruction.  With over 20 years of combined experience they have performed thousands of perforator flap surgeries with high patient satisfaction. The Stacked DIEP free flap breast reconstruction, the newest addition to their repertoire, will allow women who were previously not candidates for natural tissue reconstruction another option for their breast restoration when facing mastectomy.