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Breast Reconstruction Research Paper

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Kayla Walker
Breast Reconstruction Surgery
3853: Sociology of the Body
March 10, 2016 Breast Reconstruction Surgery
In this paper, I will examine the origins of breast reconstruction as well as evaluate the overall surgery amongst women, surgeons and our society today. The treatment of breast cancer has improved remarkably from the original surgeries that were developed by Halsted (Uroskie & Colen, 2004). The techniques such as Gilles’ “walking flap” or the idea behind the reshaping of a breast “mound” from the free perforated flap using internal tissue have been advanced and solidified in our current surgical society (Uroskie et al., 2004). Although breast reconstruction was once strongly criticized it is now seen as something that …show more content…

This is when the surgeon uses tissues, “flap”, such as skin, fat or muscle from another part of your body in order to reconstruct your breast tissue (“Autologous or ‘Flap’ Reconstruction”, 2015). In the “free flap” process the tissue is taken from the original blood vessels and moved onto the chest area whereas the “pedicled flap” remains attached to the original blood vessel and moved underneath the skin to the new placement on the chest (“Autologous or ‘Flap’ Reconstruction”, 2015). The pedicled flap tends to be the surgery more widely available due to the fact that if you have a free flap surgery then your surgeon must be trained in microsurgery, which typically involves being able to reattach the tissues blood vessels to the chest area to sustain blood supply (“Autologous or ‘Flap’ Reconstruction”, 2015). These kinds of reconstruction surgeries tend to be more sought-after because the tissue from different places in the body last a lifetime whereas the implants most women receive have to be replaced every 10 or 20 years (“Autologous or ‘Flap’ Reconstruction”, 2015). Overall, the effects from each of these surgeries highly depend on your body type as well as daily activities, physical strength and the range of motion within the limbs of the body; therefore, what works for one individual does not always work for another (“Autologous or ‘Flap’ Reconstruction”,

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