Principles of Breast Augmentation: The Process of Augmentation Mastopexy and Criteria for Staging

Augmentation mastopexy remains a popular procedure for patients and surgeons. Over the past several decades, the techniques for single stage augmentation mastopexy have greatly evolved; however, even though new knowledge has improved the process, it still has a high revision rate and decreased patient satisfaction scores. The real time tissue dilemma of conflicting forces of augmentation (tissue expansion) and mastopexy (tissue reduction) have led to higher revision rates, decreased patient satisfaction and pending litigation. Some have even argued for staging of all augmentation mastopexy procedures. Similar to breast augmentation where The Process of Breast Augmentation (Adams 2008) has proven to yield superior outcomes and patient experience, the use of a safe and reliable “processed” approach to single stage augmentation mastopexy is highly predictable with low re-operation rates. The technical refinements presented have led to increased consistency in delivering high quality results to patients in a procedure fraught with challenges. This process approach presented in the following chapter demonstrates the preoperative planning and intraoperative steps to achieve predictable results with single stage augmentation mastopexy.