DOI: 10.1111/tbj.13641
You read that right. Cleveland Clinic researchers, in partnership with the University of Toledo, have been researching flat closure.
Cleveland Clinic y’all.
This week in research to #putflatonthemenu … a collaborative paper from researchers out of the The University of Toledo and Cleveland Clinic just published their aesthetic approach to flat closure in The Breast Journal, entitled “Technical considerations in nonreconstructive mastectomy patients”
“When performing post‐mastectomy closure without reconstruction, attention to tissue excess, medialization of axillary tissue and providing bulk with lateral and caudal tissue allows for an easy, reproducible, and aesthetic closure.”
– (Conclusion) Djohan et. al. 2019
What Does This Mean? We are Being Heard.
Beyond the technical impact of this research… the fact that researchers are actively pursuing this means that flat advocacy is making an impact. We are being heard. The medical community is realizing that women going flat expect better – we expect our choice to be honored, and we expect the same respect and consideration for our aesthetic result that women who choose breast mound recon are afforded.
Thank you, Cleveland Clinic researchers! Thank you for listening to women going flat, for taking our concerns seriously, and for putting your professional skills to use on our behalf.
Michelle Djohan MS
Rebecca Knackstedt MD, PhD
Tripp Leavitt MD
Risal Djohan MD
Stephen Grobmyer MD
Original version published on NPOAS’ Facebook page on October 27, 2019
I had explant surgery and wanted to be flat. Told this to doctor for 8 months before surgery. When he did surgery he said he put excess tissue back to make a small mound and he thought I would like that better. Now I am facing another surgery if I want this deformed look gone. Is this normal for doctors to use excess tissue to make you not exactly flat? Why don’t they ask you if you would like that. I told him I didn’t like it.