The work of a specialist plastic surgery team has been praised as being the best in the country for offering immediate breast reconstructive surgery to women.

A report from the National Mastectomy and Breast Reconstruction Audit says staff at the St Andrews Centre, Broomfield provide 43 per cent of women with reconstruction at the time of mastectomy, compared with 13 per cent nationally.

Skill and Expertise
One woman, who has benefitted from their skill and expertise, is Susan Barnes, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last July. Susan a health service manager said “The threat of the disease ran in my family as my mother was diagnosed four years ago. So I enrolled onto a screening programme, which was when the cancerous cells were detected. I was referred on to a breast surgeon and it was recommended that I have a mastectomy and an immediate reconstruction.”

Susan was referred to Mr Venkat Ramakrishnan, a consultant plastic surgeon who recommended a specific reconstructive operation for her. This involves removing a piece of muscle from the patient’s inner thigh and using it to reconstruct the breast using microsurgery. Throughout the whole process Susan had regular contact with her breast reconstruction team, her breast surgeon and her plastic surgeon. Susan added “From diagnosis to when I had the surgery was four weeks, everyone was very efficient, supportive and informative. It was a really good process which helped to relieve some of the anxiety I had.”

Last year the centre performed over 300 reconstructions and on average the team of four plastic surgeons perform 20 to 25 reconstructions a month. The centre uniquely also has its own Breast Reconstruction Awareness Group (BRA), which not only helps the patient through the process, but provides information after the operation as well as being a place for women with concerns to seek advise.

Highly specialist
Mr Ramakrishnan said “We run one of the biggest breast reconstruction services covering the whole of Essex and North East London and the surgery that we perform here is complex, so we do invest in some highly specialist equipment. This is the first time we have been benchmarked nationally against other hospitals and we are delighted that the number of women being given immediate reconstruction has increased, but there is still more to do to ensure that women are being given the best possible treatment”

Essex Chronicle Thursday 15th October 2009