[Effect of irradiation fields on the results of breast reconstruction with skin expansion after radiotherapy].

Deferred prosthetic breast reconstruction after skin expansion is considered to be difficult after radiotherapy. The authors report a series of 14 cases of reconstruction after radiotherapy, compared with 6 cases of reconstruction without radiotherapy. They reported a similar quality of results after radiotherapy not including irradiation of the chest wall and in the absence of radiotherapy (p = 0.742). On the other hand, a significant deterioration of the results was observed when radiotherapy included chest wall irradiation (p = 0.0015). Finally, no direct correlation was observed between the macroscopic appearance of the skin and presence or absence of a history of irradiation of the chest wall. They conclude that the indications for reconstruction by tissue expansion after radiotherapy must be based more on the irradiation protocol than on the macroscopic appearance of the skin.