PROCEDURES PERFORMED

• Breast Reduction

This 19-year-old South Florida plastic surgery patient had large breasts (macromastia, gigantomastia) since age of 12.  When she was 14-years-old, she went to see another Fort Lauderdale plastic surgeon to see whether breast reduction surgery could be performed at that time. He advised her to wait for couple of years considering that her breast may continue to grow. That is exactly what happened. Her breasts stopped growing at age 16.  For all these years, she was unable to participate in sport activities, had difficulties to find the right bra and, almost all the time, she had rush and moist skin underneath her breasts. When she presented in our Ft. Lauderdale plastic surgery center, she was about to start college.  She wanted to “get rid of these huge breasts and finally have normal breasts”. We have discussed with her not only appearance, size and placement of scars but also possible loss of breast feeding potential as well as decreased sensation in nipples. These are very important problems to discuss with patient in fertile age. Sometimes breast reduction of large breasts may require use of “free nipple graft” to avoid possible loss of nipple. This means that nipple and areola will be cut off breast tissue and breast gland and, at the end of breast reduction procedure, placed on top of new breast mound. Nipple will lose contact with milk canals and will not be able to pass milk; thus breast feeding needs to be stopped immediately after birth to avoid complication of breast infection. This will also compromise nipple sensation considering that nipple is cut off its original nerve supply. Loss of nipple sensation is unavoidable after breast reduction surgery although it may significantly improve over time.