Breast reconstruction using back muscle transfer ( Latissimus dorsi flap) involves moving a flap of muscle, skin and fat from the back to the chest to form a new chest ‘mound’.
There are different ways of moving the tissue from the back to the chest. Usually a saline implant is placed behind the new breast ‘mound’ to increase the size of the reconstructed breast and match the size of the other breast.This type of operation may not be possible if a woman doesn’t have enough tissue on her back.
Advantages of breast reconstruction using back muscle transfer:
- it produces a more natural looking breast than implant-only reconstructions
- the reconstructed breast will change in size if the woman gains or loses weight.
Disadvantages of breast reconstruction using back muscle transfer:
- the woman will have a scar on her back
- there may be some loss of strength in the arm
- there’s a small risk the tissue moved to the chest will not ‘take’, meaning the tissue will die; if this happens another operation will be needed
- the hospital stay and recovery time will be longer than with implant-only reconstruction.
