Long-term outcome after mastectomy with immediate breast reconstruction

Introduction. The purpose of this study was to investigate long term outcome for women who had undergone mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction. Material and methods. Patient files of 167 immediately reconstructed breast cancer patients were reviewed for late surgical complications. Furthermore, information of local recurrence rate, radiotherapy and death was obtained from the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group register. Histopatological high and low risk patients were compared with respect to locoregional recurrence rate, recurrence free survival and death. Unpaired t-test and Fisher's exact test were used to test for significance. Results. The overall rate of revision surgery was 27%. Reconstruction with implants was associated with a significantly higher rate of revision surgery compared to reconstructions with transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous flap or latissimus dorsi flap without implant (36 vs. 14%; p =0.004). The locoregional recurrence rate was 6%. Patients with histopathologically high risk disease had increased death rate (22 vs. 6%; p =0.03) and shorter disease free survival (89+/-43 months vs. 104+/-35 months. p =0.048) compared with low risk disease. We found no increase in the occurrence of capsular contracture in our study group in patients who received radiotherapy. Conclusion. Immediate breast reconstruction seems to be oncologically safe. Breast reconstruction performed with implants was associated with a higher risk of late complications, as was histopathologically high risk disease with increased death rate and shorter disease free survival.