What does mastectomy mean? Authoritative experts are here to answer!

I believe that everyone has often heard of the term mastectomy, because women's breasts may have many diseases, some of which are very serious, such as breast fibroids. There are many ways to treat these diseases, and one of the measures is to directly remove the breast. Many people may not know what mastectomy means, and often misunderstand it, so the following knowledge in this area will be introduced.

What does a mastectomy mean?

Treatment after mastectomy for breast cancer: Chemotherapy can be used for patients after breast cancer surgery. It can enhance the sensitivity of patients' tumor cells, prevent tumor metastasis and recurrence, and improve patients' quality of life. Thereby prolonging the patient's life. After surgery, patients should also do a good job of follow-up examinations. After breast cancer is resected, more attention should be paid to adjuvant treatment, because recurrence and metastasis after surgery are common, and good adjuvant treatment after breast cancer surgery can prevent recurrence and metastasis and provide effective treatment.

Breast cancer surgery ≠ mastectomy

Breast cancer surgery is a nightmare for women. The current mainstream treatment method in China is classic radical mastectomy, which involves removing the entire breast and surface skin, pectoralis major and minor muscles, intermuscular lymph nodes, and all axillary fat and lymphatic tissue. This procedure is still relatively common in China and has the advantage of being able to more thoroughly clear local cancerous tissue and axillary lymph nodes with cancer metastasis, basically achieving local cure, with a low local recurrence rate after surgery.

The picture above is the mastectomy that women fear the most, but mastectomy is completely different - the surgery involves making a long oval incision on the inside and outside of the breast, from the chest to the vulva. The outer breast incision and the edge of the breast tissue are used as boundaries, and the inner breast incision is bounded by the midline of the abdomen. The mammary gland is separated from the pectoral muscle and its fascia without removing other breast tissue.

Will my breasts sag after a mastectomy?

The connective tissue is responsible for supporting and fixing the breasts. It is the fiber bundles connecting the superficial chest muscles and the pectoral fascia, and does not belong to the breast tissue! However, after mastectomy, the original position needs to be filled to maintain the fullness of the breasts.