FAT GRAFTING for post radiation problems HELP!

dpms

My mother finished going through her complete breast cancer treatment as of July 18, 2013. This included a Mastectomy with 10 lymphnodes removed, chemo (ACT), and 6 weeks of radiation. Around the middle of her radiation she started to feel extreme tightness on her chestwall and as the radiation completed, and following it, and additional symptom of feeling her rib bones rubbing against her under arm, or a sensation of them poking started. Both of these symptoms have gotten worse. After seeing many doctors, surgeons, and pain management clinics, we have concluded that the tightness is and the "bone poking" is from scar tissue, and fibrotic tissues that have formed post her mastectomy and post radiation effects. She also says it feels like her armhole is shorter and tighter - feels like the bones are clasping around her armhole, and that everything is just pressed up against her chestwall and stuck. Doctors say the pull force is the scaring and fibrotic tissues which have contracted her pec and other surrounding muscles, causing her shoulder to be pulled down, and hence the feeling of her ribs poking and rubbing against her underarm

These issues have just gotten exponentially worse over the last 9 months. She has also been in Physical Therapy throughout this whole duration. (she already had full range of motion - that was never a problem). They have tried breaking the scar tissue through massage, and strengthening excercises, but this has also not helped.

We have met with two great plastic surgeons just recently. One at Stanford and one at Mayo Clinic. The stanford one has suggested reconstructive surgery, and that it should help her problem issues, by going in and physically removing scar tissue, and doing a tissue transfer from the abdomen.

The mayo one has suggested Fat Grafting. We are told this procedure has been used for breast cancer patients in only the last 5 years.

**My question today is if anyone has gotten Fat grafting done to resolve issues similar to my mothers.

Does it in fact help with tightness and pulling in the chest wall?

Does it create a padding on the chestwall?

Do you feel like it has revascularized the area? giving is blood circulation?

Can you feel a difference? An improvement? How long after the procedure did you start to see the affect of fat grafting?

Did it break up scar tissues?

If you got it done, who was your surgeon and from which hospital?

What was your recovery from it like, and how many sessions did it require? We are not looking to get a complete reconstruction done through fat grafting. Just for it to help with her problem issues.

Thank you so much for your responses and any help you can offer. We are really struggling trying to figure out what to do, as doctors are giving different approaches and opinions that are so different. We hope other patients like ourselves will be able to shed some light on this.