Is mastectomy breast cancer surgery?

Cancer is a terrifying disease for everyone because it usually results in death. Therefore, it is normal to be terrified when talking about cancer. Women probably suffer from more cancers than men in their lifetime, such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, etc. Well, in medicine there is a surgery called mastectomy. Is this surgery a breast cancer surgery?

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.

Can I still breastfeed after a mastectomy?

NO! The mammary gland is the gland in the breast that secretes milk. It will not secrete milk after removal.

Will my breasts sag after a mastectomy?

NO! The connective tissue is what supports and fixes the breasts. They are the fiber bundles that connect the superficial chest muscles and the pectoral fascia. They do not belong to breast tissue! However, after the mastectomy, the original position needs to be filled to keep the breasts full (Jolie's surgery added fillers).