Breast shaping by an isolated tissue flap.

Breast reshaping surgery for tuberous breast, breast reduction, and mastopexy procedures aim to keep the gained shape for a long time. In breast reduction, the surgeon must avoid loss of fullness in the upper pole, descent of the breast mass known as secondary dropout, and relapsed shape of the repaired tuberous breasts. As described in their clinical report, the authors use a caudally based thoracic wall flap to avoid these problems. The blood supply to the breast comes from two main sources: the mammary internal and lateral arteries. Because of vessels constantly perforating the pectoralis major muscle, it is possible to isolate a caudally based thoracic wall flap. These vessels originate from intercostal arteries as anteromedial intercostal perforators, and from the thoracoacromial artery as in the skin paddle of the pectoralis major muscle flap. This flap is long enough to reach every part of the breast where it is needed. Between January 2002 and June 2005, 64 patients underwent procedures in which the caudally based thoracic wall flap was used.