INTRODUCTION

Patients desiring breast reduction are often in overweight, and describe interferences with their daily life and minor psychological problems. We undertook this study to establish the pre- and postoperative weight pattern by age and histological breast type.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A retrospective review was performed on 100 consecutive patients who underwent bilateral reduction mammaplasty for macromastia (>300g per breast) in 2007. The patients were categorized by age in two groups: group 1 (G1) comprising the 50 younger patients (mean age: 35.5 years) and group 2 (G2) comprising the 50 older (mean age: 47.2 years). We obtained data points including: preoperative and postoperative weight pattern according to age and histological subtypes, calculation of body mass index (BMI), data from surgery including amount of resection, postoperative course and complications.

RESULTS

Patients consulting for breast reduction are moderately overweight (mean BMI: 28.22 confounded all ages). Preoperative weight loss is low despite systematic surgeon request (<0.5 % on average waiting time of 6.45 months). The postoperative weight loss is higher in young patients with glandular form of HTM (respectively -4.76 kg for glandulofibrous type and -3kg for fibrous, which corresponds to a loss of 6.5 and 4.1 % of their body weight). The impact of surgery on the patient's psychological condition is better in young patients.

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrated that postoperative weight loss after breast reduction are significant only in young patients with a constitutional type of macromastia (glandular or mixed forms). We believe that in addition to the functional improvement associated with surgery, these young patients lose weight they initially take to harmonize their silhouette.