One-step prepectoral breast reconstruction with porcine dermal matrix-covered implant: A protective technique improving the outcome in post-mastectomy radiation therapy setting

Background: Post-mastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) applied on implant-assisted immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) involves a marked increase in complication rate. The recent opportunity of performing an ADM-assisted prepectoral breast reconstruction (PPBR) raised the hypotesis of a protective interaction between ADM and periprosthetic tissues under PMRT. Methods: We performed a retrospective monocentric analysis of a cohort of consecutively treated patients undergone one-step PPBR between January 2015 and September 2018. The aim is to examine complication rate and aesthetic satisfaction of patients, in order to evaluate if this reconstructive technique could be recommendable in PMRT setting. Group 1 comprised 158 patients not submitted to PMRT and Group 2 twenty-eight patients undergone PMRT. Results: All post-operative complications were not statistically different between the two groups, except for capsular contracture (P=0.011). We obtained very high percentages in all BREAST-Q categories in Group 2 patients: satisfaction with breasts 86.8±13.9, satisfaction with implants 6.5±3.0, high satisfaction for no adverse effects of radiation 15.7±6.8. According to multivariate analysis no risk factor was significantly associated with complications. Conclusions: We may conclude that one-step PPBR with porcine ADM followed by PMRT is well tolerated, with no significant risk of adverse outcomes, at least in the short-term follow-up. These promising outcomes warrant further studies to examine the existence of a protective effect due to ADM integration with subcutaneous tissue.