Blog Archives

The Rewards and Challenges of a Plastic Surgeon

Posted on April 25th, 2011 in Breast Surgery, Plastic Surgeon, Reconstructive Surgery

Being a young doctor may seem daunting enough, but for plastic surgeon Dr. Rania El Hativ, couple that with also being the first female in your field out of a population of more than 7.5 million. 29 year old, Dr. El Hativ is the first female Israeli plastic surgeon, according to Jewish Journal, a distinction she finds both encouraging and a responsibility. With that comes carrying the weight of speaking for her patients and showing that plastic surgery stretches far beyond cosmetic procedures, El Hativ said. El Hativ says the challenge of repairing traumas like burns, tumors and cleft palates, among others, is inspiring to her. As an artist, El Hativ says she is able to combine the medical with the aesthetic to help her reconstructive patients. One such patient was a child who was born with a cleft palate. Three months after El Hativ performed the surgery, the child returned for a check up and El Hativ said there was no evidence of the cleft palate. “I suddenly understood what I had done for her and how her life was transformed by this surgery,” El Hativ said. For now, as El Hativ focuses her attention on helping reconstructive patients regain something they once thought was lost, she also works to educate her community about plastic surgery. “They don’t know that there are so many other things we can do to help change people’s lives,” El Hativ said. Among the reconstructive surgeries performed by plastic surgeons are also breast reconstruction after a mastectomy and tissue expansion, which works to create excess tissue as part of a procedure.

Mammograms Easily Read for Breast Lipomodeling Patients

Posted on April 18th, 2011 in Breast Surgery, Reconstructive Surgery

Women who have undergone breast lipomodeling should not encounter any issues when submitting to a mammogram, a study by the ASPS found. The study, which was published in March, examined women who had undergone breast lipomodeling as an alternative to more traditional implant-based breast augmentation. It found that 16 months after the procedure, more than half of the women displayed no abnormalities that would cause an issue on a mammogram. Of the women who did show any abnormalities, they were minor issues like scarring or small calcifications. The study also compared mammograms for women both before and after breast lipomodeling and found no significant differences in the mammogram results. Breast lipomodeling was originally introduced as a means for breast reconstruction following a mastectomy. In the cosmetic procedure, your plastic surgeon would use liposuction to remove excess fatty deposits from a donor site on your body, like the hips or thighs. After it has been purified, your plastic surgeon then uses lipomodeling techniques to inject the fat into your breasts, giving them volume and improving the shape. While the results of the ASPS study are only preliminary, they bode well for the continued adoption of breast lipomodeling in the plastic surgery breast augmentation canon.

MRIs May Not Detect All Ruptured Breast Implants

Posted on April 11th, 2011 in Breast Surgery

MRIs may not be as effective in detecting ruptured breast implants in women as the FDA originally thought, according to a study published by Medical News Today. A research team at the University of Michigan investigated the effectiveness of MRI scans in detecting breast implant ruptures and found that among women who had no symptoms, the ruptures often went undetected. For women who had experienced symptoms of a ruptured implant, such as hardening of the breast or pain, detection rate was much higher. In a mixed screening of women with and without symptoms, ruptured implants in those with symptoms were twice as likely to be detected by the MRI. Researchers said that the average age of the ruptured implants they saw was ten years—implants are not guaranteed to last a lifetime and often need to be replaced. Though this data may be disconcerting, the study’s authors said further research needs to be done to determine the effectiveness of detecting a ruptured implant through an MRI. They also urged that the long-term health effects of a ruptured implant need further study. Plastic surgeons successfully use breast implants as part of breast augmentation to increase breast size and projection as well as in breast lift surgeries to lift sagging breasts, which may have also lost volume.

Alternative to Botulinum Toxin Injections

Posted on April 4th, 2011 in Wrinkle Treatment

An alternative to Botox and Dysport is seeing early signs of success in “freezing” away many types of forehead wrinkles, according to U.S. News. Though both Botox and Dysport are hugely popular non-surgical options for diminishing many facial lines and wrinkles, new alternatives are often being researched. This treatment, which is called cryoneuromodulation, “appears to have the same clinical efficacy and safety comparable to the existing techniques,” according to Francis Palmer, director of facial plastic surgery at the University of Southern California School of Medicine in Los Angeles, who co-authored the study. Rather than paralyzing the underlying muscle to smooth out the wrinkle as Botox and Dysport do, this new method freezes specific nerves in the forehead using small needles. This stops the nerve from communicating with the muscle, which causes it to relax. The smoothing effect is almost immediate and lasts about as long as botulinum toxin-based methods—three to four months. The procedure takes about 15 minutes to complete while the patient is under a local anesthetic. Patients said the level of discomfort was similar to that experienced with Botox. Though you may want to jump at the chance to try this new wrinkle-fighting treatment, it is still in the early stages of trails and has only been tested on forehead wrinkles. In the meantime, Botox is known to beautifully treat forehead lines, frown lines and crow’s feet.