Breast Cerclage: An Innovative Expedient for Perimammary Dehiscence Healing

We report the case of a 66-year-old female patient with a critical post-surgical sternal dehiscence and multiple chronic comorbidities. The dehiscence was managed with a routinely performed primary intention closure combined with an innovative breast cerclage. To our opinion, this is the first reported description of a breast cerclage used as an expedient to reduce tension on the wound and minimize the risk of relapse, allowing a rapid and complete healing. This novel technique has proved to be effective and satisfactory in the achievement of both a functional and aesthetic results and we are confident that it could become a fully-fledged wound healing issue in chest wall reconstruction.Graphical abstractGraphic 1: Scheme of the mammary cerclage. A: on the left, the frontal plane image showing how we encircled the breast, with the thread, following an in-and-out pattern and sparing the mammary glandular tissue. B: on the right, the sagittal view showing the depth of the suture, involving the cutaneous and subcutaneous tissue and sparing the muscle.

Source: Journal of the American College of Clinical Wound Specialists - July 5, 2018 Category: General Medicine Source Type: research