Breast Reduction Patient 4
This is a 46-year-old African American patient presented to our office with several decades of back, shoulder and neck pain attributed to the large, pendulous size of her breasts. Other symptoms included intertrigo and general impairment in her activities of daily life.
Her anatomy was considerable for a long distance from the nipple areolar complex (NAC) to her sternal notch and inframammary fold (IMF), over 33 and 22 centimeters respectively. These factors raised the likelihood that the nipple areolar complex may have issues which threaten its viability during surgery; thus, many surgeons will opt to perform a free nipple graft procedure from the onset of this surgery.
However, after the patient was counseled about this concern and, more importantly, that performing this technique could be safely performed during her operation only if warranted, she agreed to undergo a superomedial pedicle breast reduction which removed over 1 kg of breast tissue from each breast successfully and was done without free nipple grafting.
Both surgery and the patient’s recovery went smoothly, and she was very pleased with her results, both those that were functionally impactful in her life post-operatively as well as the aesthetic appearance of her breasts after the procedure.