INLSA

Dr Jeffery Hartog, left, from the US, performs the groundbreaking breast reconstruction surgery on a patient at Tygerberg Hospital yesterday. The method uses the patients own fat tissue to help rebuild the breasts of cancer survivors.

SIPOKAZI FOKAZI

Health Writer

A GROUNDBREAKING breast reconstruction technique, which uses the patient’s own fat tissue to help rebuild the breasts, is set to offer new hope to cancer survivors who cannot have implants.

Showcased by plastic surgeons at Tygerberg Hospital yesterday, the US-developed procedure is aimed specifically at those women who have lost their breasts to cancer, but for whom implants are not a possibility owing to unhealed wounds that can be a side-effect of radiation therapy.

Put simply, the cell-enriched fat-grafting procedure uses the patient’s own fat tissue, taken from the abdomen or thigh, along with naturally occurring regenerative cells.

After the fat is removed by means of liposuction, it is divided into two portions. From one portion, stem cells are extracted by means of new sophisticated technology, called the Cytori Celution System. These are then combined with the other fat, which has been washed to remove any impurities, then regrafted, by injection, into the affected breast as micro-droplets.

Professor Frank Graewe, head of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital, explained yesterday that the new procedure was a significant improvement on similar existing methods. The stem cells in this method had more chance of surviving because they were added to the fat tissue as a concentrate.

The traditional fat transfer, which had been used in South Africa for a number of years, involved only the washing of the fat, followed by its regrafting into breast tissue – without first undergoing stem-cell extraction.

Graewe said that while this fat-transfer procedure was also effective in breast reconstruction, there was more chance of the stem cells dying than in the new procedure.

“With the traditional technique there is about a 50 to 80 percent chance of stem-cell survival. But with the new procedure it’s even better.

“There’s a better chance of cell survival because of the concentrate of stem cells that gets added to the other portion of fat, which also already contains its own (stem) cells.”

Graewe said that while stem cells had been widely used in South Africa to treat leukaemia, there was a growing hope, after the necessary research was complete, that this type of treatment would play a vital role in treating cancer.

The cell-enriched fat-grafting procedure is new to South Africa, but it has been used in more than 4 000 patients around Europe and in some Asian countries, including China.

It has a role not only in breast reconstruction but also in the healing of wounds that result primarily from radiotherapy.

Graewe said the fact that the product was new, and came at a high cost of about R25 000 for breast reconstruction, meant it would be used only in select cases in the public health sector. It would also, however, be available to private patients.

About 1 000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the Western Cape every year.

Cytori chief executive Christopher Calhoun said that with the increase in prevalence of cancer around the world, cell-enriched fat grafting was the most exciting technique in reconstructive surgery – particularly for patients who underwent only partial breast removal.

“As cancer treatment improves all the time, doctors are no longer going for a full mastectomy when women are diagnosed with cancer, instead trying to protect as much of the patient’s own tissue as possible,” he said.

The new procedure dramatically minimised the consequent scarring, “giving patients back their natural breast”, he said.

sipokazi.fokazi@inl.co.za