Breast reconstruction for men

Hello Traveltext,

Interesting article.

Are you interested in reconstruction for yourself, or are you just opening up a dialog? What have you heard from other male breast cancer survivors? I have not met a male breast cancer survivor in person.

I realize that first and foremost, the surgeons are trying to save lives when they are dealing with breast cancer. However, I wonder if surgeons could have more concern for the scar that remains. Would that make lumpectomies and mastectomies less successful in removing all the cancer? Are surgeons less concerned about the scars on their male patients?

I had a skin-sparing, nipple-sparing, prophylactic bilateral mastectomy. My breast surgeon didn't have to worry about margins, although she did need to worry about getting all the breast tissue. My plastic surgeon marked me before surgery because he was concern about the excess skin to be removed and he wanted a good shape for my breasts for reconstruction.

Thank you for keeping us informed.

Traveltext, truly I am so sorry for what your mum endured. Those were certainly the dark days for treatment of breast and ovarian cancer.

So many of my mother's friends and colleagues went through those radical mastectomies: breast tissue, muscle, and entire swaths of lymph nodes removed. Many of her friends could no longer lift their arms on the affected sides. Mastectomies and lumpectomies have improved since those disfiguring and disabling surgeries.

In the 1950's, ovarian cancer treatment was in its infancy. Just before my mother's wedding in 1956, my maternal grandmother had a lump on her ovary, and was told not to worry about until her next annual exam. About 6 months later, it was the size of a grapefruit. Her treatment included filling the abdominal cavity with mustard gas. Obviously that didn't work and my grandmother died a few months later.

Don't worry about not being able to compare scars when meeting. If you wanted, you could compare reconstruction stories and results. There's always something to discuss!

While they may not offer reconstruction up front (though they should, most probably just assume men won't care how it looks), if you're in the US, you're still usually legally entitled to it if the surgery--which is still a mastectomy--was done due to breast cancer or breast cancer prevention reasons.

Reconstruction can be done after the fact, so you can go back to your surgeon and ask about what they can do to improve scar appearance or to flatten out or re-contour the chest to give it a more pre-surgery look to it if possible.