Breast surgeons at the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute at Hartford Hospital are performing a revolutionary procedure that allows them to do specific types of breast cancer surgery without leaving visible marks. Dr. Heather King is a breast surgeon with the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute to describe how this technique is making a big difference in the lives of breast cancer patients.
Q: Describe the “hidden scar” technique?
A: The hidden scar surgical approach involves a surgeon placing an incision in a location where the scar is not visible once the patient has healed from the surgery. This eliminates the visual reminder of surgery – and cancer – after it is treated. This technique can be used either with a mastectomy, where we remove the entire breast but are able to preserve the nipple (also known as nipple-sparing mastectomy) or a lumpectomy (where we are only removing a small portion of the breast). This is all done through incisions that we hide, either around the edge of the areola, or the inframmamary fold – where your underwire sits – or in the armpit.
Q: Call all women with breast cancer needing surgery have this “hidden scar” procedure?
A: Unfortunately, not all women are candidates for hidden scar surgery. A surgeon can guide a patient to the most appropriate surgery based on the size and location of the tumor, as well as breast shape and size. The good news is that with improved surgical technology, more and more women who weren’t thought to be good candidates for these hidden scar techniques in the past can now have them.
Q: What are the results of this technique?
A: The goal of hidden scar surgery is to remove a cancer while minimizing noticeable scars and optimize how the breast looks after a patient has healed from surgery.
Q: How does this compare to conventional methods of surgery? How large might a scar actually be?
A: Traditional methods for a lumpectomy involve making an incision right over the tumor in the breast, where the scar may be more visible when it heals. With a conventional mastectomy, the nipple and areola are removed along with the underlying breast, leaving a linear scar where the nipple and areola used to be.
The size of the scar depends on the size of the cancer and whether tissue needs to be rearranged to maintain the shape of the breast. Even in cases where the incision needs to be larger, it can still be completely or mostly hidden to minimize the noticeable scar.
For more information on “hidden scar” or other breast cancer surgeries or treatments at the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute at Hartford Hospital, please call Cancer Connect at 1.855.255.6181.
