This plays a very important role in treatment options for Breast Cancer. When Surgery is performed in its treatment, one of the options used is for the post operative breast to be as close as is humanly possible to the natural breast and remarkable results are now being obtained. The objective is to do the reconstructive surgery at the same time as the surgery for treatment of the disease and the patient will wake up after surgery with a ‘breast’ in position almost as it was before the operation. Several different reconstruction options are available which are improving all the time.
Cosmetic surgery is very common. Many women don’t ‘like’ their breasts and want them larger or smaller or lifted or something else. Making them larger is done by inserting silicone or saline prostheses. Every woman over the age of 35 years must have a mammogram before having cosmetic surgery because of the risk of breast cancer. Breast reduction surgery is a good operation because there are obvious size and weight advantages but importantly it has been shown that the breast cancer risk diminishes after
a reduction procedure. Because these operations are considered not to be medically relevant, the third party payers will not consider their Medical Aid contributions.
