HANDS UP! OR THE LONG STORY OF A 21-YEAR-OLD GIRL’S RETURN TO FEMININE BEAUTY

What are tubular female breasts, most likely, few people know. The term comes from the word “tubus” – a tube, or more precisely – an elongated cylinder. Alas, sometimes the breast is and such a shape, although its natural purpose does not affect it in any way. In addition, Lydia K., in her opinion, had disproportionately large nipples, which made her turn to plastic surgeons at a commercial beauty centre when she was 18 years old.

In 2020, she underwent aesthetic breast correction – an implant was placed under the large pectoral muscle through an incision at the edge of the areola and without additional options in the pectoral crease, which, as it turned out, was crucial in this situation. Six months later, the girl went back to the familiar address, because the appearance of the breast became even sadder. This time the specialists had to do bilateral skin tightening around the nipples, and just a few months later – vertical mastopexy, i.e. excision of excess skin to tighten the breasts. But even that didn’t save the situation. So when Lydia turned to the specialists of the Department of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery of the Breast and Skin of the P. Hertsen Moscow Oncology Research Institute – branch of the FSBI “National Medical Research Radiological Centre” of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, she had already had three operations and a very poor result.

“In fact, in our patient’s case, it was not necessary to correct the shape of the breast with implants, much less to place them under the muscle. These were two fundamental mistakes,” says Marina Zakharova, Lydia’s oncomammologist. – We tried to correct the negative effect of these mistakes with subsequent surgeries. The implants were placed too high – and as a result, we got a “waterfall” effect: the glandular breast tissue slid down from the fixed implants in the form of skin pouches. Moreover, the surgeries left unsightly hypertrophic scars. 

The girl smokes a lot, which, according to doctors, plays a bad role for healing and the skin condition in general. In order to make a correct diagnosis and develop a plan of action, according to Dr. Eric Saribekyan, a leading researcher at the Department of Oncology and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery of the breast and skin at the . Hertsen Moscow Oncology Research Institute, the doctors simply had to ask her to raise her hands up and see at what level the nipple was located. If it is located below the sub-mammary fold (i.e. the natural curve line under the breast) below the gland, then there was no way to do without an anchor lift. So the first stage of the surgical team led by Dr. Erik Saribekyan was a vertical L-shaped mastopexy (lift), removing part of the sagging skin pouch and all the scar tissue that had formed vertically. The second step will be to remove scar tissue around the nipples. It will stop there for now, but only temporarily.

“Lovely women, remember that if you get implants at such a young age, for example at 18, you should realise that in the future you will definitely have to undergo surgery to replace or correct your breasts. Two or three operations during your lifetime will be recommended for sure,” concludes Erik Karlovich.