J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2019 Dec 7;72(12):1923-1929. Epub 2019 Sep 7.
Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Hagey Laboratory for Pediatric Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, 770 Welch Road, Suite 400, Stanford, Palo Alto, CA 94304, United States. Electronic address:
Over the past several decades, technical advances in breast reconstruction have resulted in the development of flaps that are aimed at progressively decreasing abdominal wall morbidity. There is, however, ongoing controversy related to the superiority of deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flaps over muscle-sparing TRAM (MS-TRAM) flaps. Hence, the question remains unanswered as to which approach should be considered the standard of care, and more importantly, whether the rate of DIEP flap utilization should be considered a quality metric in breast reconstruction. Read More