Superomedial Pedicle Versus Inferior Pedicle in Breast Reduction Surgery

The female breast is one of the most attractive aesthetic areas in female anatomy. The size, shape, and symmetry of the breasts can have a dramatic effect on the women's wellbeing. Reduction mammaplasty is certainly one of the operations; plastic surgeons can significantly contribute to a woman's quality of life.

Macromastia or Breast Hypertrophy is a pathologic condition consisting of hypertrophy of the breast. It generates both physical and psychological distress, presenting a significant threat to a woman's health-related quality of life. Regarding Physical Distress Macromastia always associated with a number of musculoskeletal complications, including neck pain, back pain, headache, peripheral neuralgias, and shoulder pain. Often, women with mammary hypertrophy experience intertriginous skin maceration and other rashes, as well as infections all the result of heavy, pendulous breasts. In short, a woman's breast size can affect her attitudes, career choices, and personal life in many ways.

Ideal technique should end in a beautiful breast, which has good size with fullness in the upper part, attractive shape with adequate projection, elegant curves, and a nipple areola complex that is pleasing in shape and position. The result should last over years.

The inferior pedicle technique has been described with many variations by surgeons such as Ribeiro and Robbins with the nipple and areola being carried on a dermal pedicle, and it is probably one of the most popular breast reduction techniques currently in use in the United States. Advantages of this are well known. It is a rapid and safe technique that can be used on almost every breast size. It has been shown to be as good as or better than other techniques in the preservation of the neurovascular supply to the nipple. It is easily taught and learned.

The superomedial pedicle technique was first described by Orlando & Gutherie as a modification of the superior pedicle technique. In this technique the nipple & areola (NAC) is transposed on a superomedial de-epithelialized pedicle which contains a thin layer of subcutaneous tissue to protect the dermal blood supply.