From the "?fat capsule" to the "fat belt". Limiting protective lipofilling on irradiated expanders for breast reconstruction to selective key areas
BACKGROUND:
The number of patients undergoing mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction with tissue expanders followed by post-mastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) is exponentially increasing. To reduce the rate of complications, in 2011, the senior author of this manuscript described the use of protective lipofilling in patients undergoing unplanned PMRT to the expander with a specific protocol aiming to decrease the rate of complications.