Mastopexy

Mastopexy: the vertical technique bilateral breast lift.

Mastopexy (breast lift) surgery denotes a group of elective surgical procedures designed either to lift or to change the shape of a woman’s breasts. Besides lifting the breast tissue and removing skin, a mastopexy might also include repositioning the areola and the nipple. In practice, a mastopexy can be effected as a discrete surgery, or as a subordinate surgery comprehended within a breast augmentation done for the emplacement of breast implants. The physical changes afforded by a mastopexy — the position and shape of the breast, by the (re) distribution of the existing breast tissues — are temporary, because the effects of gravity and of aging will continue acting upon the patient’s body, causing ptosis to recur in the course of time.

Mastopexy surgery procedures

Full breast lift

The full breast lift involves an incision along the crease underneath the breast, incisions around the areola, and a vertical incision between the areola and the base of the breast, called “anchor incision” and “inverted-T incision”. This technique removes excess skin, elevates the breast, and often reduces the size of the areola, and thus allows effecting maximal changes to the breast. As such, it is the most widely used, traditional surgical technique because it consistently produces the desired breast shape and breast position upon the chest wall.

Breast augmentation: A plastic surgeon performing a mastopexy (breast lift) in conjunction with a silicone breast implant procedure. To meet the patient’s desired outcome, the two procedures are commonly combined as one surgery.

The three, distinct scars, consequent to this mastopexy technique, are in three locations; each has a characteristic pattern of healing. In the peri-areolar area, the scarring is partially concealed by the lighter-to-darker change in skin color at the transition from the breast skin to the pigmented skin of the areola. The vertical, anchor incision from the areola to the breast crease can be hidden in shadow. The inframammary portion of the scar, that courses along the inframammary fold of the breast, often is the thickest of the three surgical scars, but it can be hidden in that fold. Moreover, although the coloration of these scars fades, they do remain visible, in most cases.

Modified breast lift

The modified breast lift effects the same transformation as a full breast lift, but with fewer consequent scars; yet, it is potentially limited, because the plastic surgeon can effect fewer changes to the shape of the breast. In surgical praxis, the modified mastopexy surgical technique often is performed as part of a breast augmentation. There are several, variant modified breast lift techniques: (i) the “Benelli breast lift” (“doughnut lift”), which is a concentric mastopexy that involves removing a ring of skin from around the areola in order to limit scarring of the areolar area; (ii) the “crescent lift” that also removes a ring of tissue from around the areola, but which takes more tissue from the area above the areola, thereby raising the nipple and areola on the chest wall; (iii) the “lollipop lift”, which involves an incision around the nipple and areola, with a vertical scar extending to the inframammary fold, the crease underneath the breast; and (iv) a “doughnut lift” variant that includes removing excess skin from underneath the breast.

(source:wikipedia)