Immediate breast reconstruction: short-term experience in 75 consecutive cases.

Immediate breast reconstructions are being done more often nowadays to avoid the stress that the patient experiences while living without a breast. In this paper, the procedure and short term outcome of 75 patients who underwent immediate breast reconstructions at the Karolinska Hospital are reported. The median age of the patients was 48 years, and most of the tumours were stage O to 2 at the time of the operation, though reconstructions were also done for patients with more advanced cancer, for psychological reasons. The approach was multidisciplinary with oncologists, general surgeons, and plastic surgeons involved. Different reconstructive methods were used, and the operations were tailor-made for each patient. Twenty one permanent prostheses, 11 expanders, 33 expander prostheses, and eight pedicled and two free transverse rectus abdominis musculocutaneous (TRAM) flaps were used for reconstruction. The opposite breast was adjusted in 43 (57%) of the patients. There were 11 postoperative complications (15%), and in only one patient (1%), could the reconstruction not be completed. There was a tendency towards more complicated reconstructive procedures over time. The demand for immediate breast reconstruction is steadily increasing from both patients and doctors.