Tummy Tissue
DIEP, MS-TRAM and TRAM FLAP
Advantages:
The ‘Gold Standard’ in breast reconstruction. Uses the patients’ own tummy tissue and transplants it to the breast to restore breast volume and shape with some of the benefits of a tummy tuck. Will move, feel and age in a more natural way than an implant reconstruction and withstand radiotherapy better.
Disadvantages:
Longer surgery, admission and downtime. Long abdominal donor site scar similar to a ‘tummy tuck’.
Recovery:
4 – 6 hours of surgery
4 – 6 days in hospital
At least 6 week recovery to normal functioning
What do DIEP, MS-TRAM and TRAM mean?
When first developed in the 1970s the abdominal tissue would be taken with one of the underlying tummy muscles and was known as a Transverse Rectus Abdominus Myocutaneous (TRAM) Flap. Later a smaller amount of muscle was taken, Muscle Sparing (MS-TRAM) Flap. Further refinements allowed the muscle to be completely spared as the just the skin and fatty tissue were taken on the underlying blood vessel, the Deep Inferior Epigastric Artery Perforator (DIEP) Flap.