Breast Reconstruction Options: What Your Surgeon Won't Quote
Most women deciding on breast reconstruction after a mastectomy are working from fear, not numbers. Dr. Merisa Piper is a reconstructive microsurgeon at UCSF who performs every option: breast implants, DIEP flap, other autologous reconstruction, and aesthetic flat closure. Because she does all of them, she has no reason to sell any of them.
She gives Joelle the complication rates most patients never hear. Implant infection at 15 to 20 percent, not the two or three percent some centers quote. Capsular contracture at the same rate. Both doubled permanently by prior radiation, even radiation…
The skinny
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