Breast Reconstruction options - DIEP Flap, Charleston, SC

For women facing breast cancer, understanding your breast restoration options can offer a sense of hope and well-being. As restoration techniques advance, many women now benefit from procedures which use their own body tissue to create more natural looking and feeling results than ever before.

Using an advanced technique called the DIEP Flap, Charleston, SC plastic surgeon Dr. Patrick O’Neill replaces the tissue and skin removed during mastectomy with tissue from the abdomen, reattaching it to the blood supply using microsurgical techniques. Unlike with other reconstruction techniques, no abdominal muscle strength is sacrificed with DIEP Flap. Charleston, SC plastic surgeon Dr. O’Neill is specially trained in this technique, offering results that look and feel more like a natural breast than with implant reconstruction.

Incisions used in DIEP Flap breast restoration are much like those used in a tummy tuck operation, a lower abdominal incision that can be covered easily by many underwear styles. The procedure also offers the advantage of a trimmer, slimmer abdomen, which many women appreciate after surgery.

For women without ample abdominal tissue, other areas of the body can be used to graft tissue. Though not everyone will be a good candidate for DIEP Flap, Charleston, SC plastic surgeon Dr. O’Neill will discuss all your breast restoration options with you during consultation. Other options include using buttocks tissue (iGAP and sGAP flaps) and inner upper thigh tissue (TUG flaps) among others.

For more information on breast reconstruction, or to schedule a consultation with Charleston plastic surgeon Dr. Patrick O’Neill, call 843-881-2130 or contact us online.