Each woman we see for breast reduction wants to know what size she’s going to be. She wants to know
about how much tissue will be removed, and about how much will be left behind. How do we make
those decisions? (Click here to see a short video presentation of this blog.)

The average woman we see for breast reduction in our Fort Worth office is 41 years old, about five feet
four inches tall, weighs about 179 pounds, and typically goes from about a 37E to a 37C bra after
surgery.

To help illustrate how we make these decisions, we’ll use one of our patients. She’s actually 60
years old, five feet one inch tall, and weighs 150 pounds.

 

 

 

In breast reduction surgery it’s all about ‘pedicles’. What’s a pedicle? A pedicle is a mound of tissue into
which blood flows, and then eventually flows back out of and into the body. In this case, blood flows
into the pedicle, goes to the nipple, and then flows back out. We need to design a mound of tissue, a
pedicle, that will maintain circulation to the nipple. The amount of tissue that we leave behind to create
the pedicle will ultimately determine how large or how small a woman is. We remove all the
tissue around the pedicle but leave that pedicle tissue.

The pedicle most commonly used in the United States today is called an ‘inferior pedicle’, where most of
that tissue is at the lower part of the breast. The blood flows into, and then out of, that pedicle. We
remove tissue from all around that pedicle of tissue in the lower part of the breast.

Probably the second most common pedicle used in the country today is called a ‘superior-medial
pedicle’. In this case the mound of tissue is primarily in the upper-inner part of the breast. That tissue is
left behind, and then tissue is removed from other areas of the breast.

There are other pedicles we can use. We can use a medial pedicle , a superior pedicle , or even a lateral
pedicle . Which pedicle we might use would be determined by a number of factors. For instance, has a
woman had surgery on her breasts before and if so, where are the scars? How large and how long are
her breasts? And, what are the women’s expectations? We can’t tell someone what bra size she will
wear, but some women do want to have a lot of tissue removed and some women want to have a little
less tissue removed.

Breast reduction surgery then is really all about pedicles. How much tissue we need to leave behind to
maintain circulation. If you’ve been thinking about breast reduction surgery we’d love to see you here in
our office in Fort Worth