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Use of Symmetry Assessment Methods in the Context of Breast Surgery

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  • Breast Surgery
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Abstract

Background

Different procedures are available to help clinicians evaluate symmetry and cosmetic results in an objective manner after conservative breast cancer surgery. However, there are no similar methods in esthetic breast surgery, where the subjective assessment of the surgeon or the patient is usually considered the gold standard. The aim of this study is to evaluate the application of four software programs in the context of esthetic breast surgery and contrast their results with those of the subjective evaluation by a series of healthcare professionals.

Materials and Methods

Sixty cosmetic breast surgery images were studied using four software programs considered appropriate for the objective evaluation (BCCT3.core®, Breast Analyzing Tool®, Objective Breast Cosmesis Scale® and GBAI—Global Breast Asymmetry Index®). The same cases were assessed by a group of 100 health professionals through an online survey as a subjective evaluation method.

Results

Concordance among participants was high (κ = 0.753) as well as between three of the objective methods (BSI, OBCS, GBAI), but not with the BCCT parameter. There was no association between objective and subjective methods studied by the survey, according to the logistic regression model. The “symmetry” and “asymmetry” categories were accurately distinguished by the objective methods.

Conclusions

Objective evaluation in esthetic breast surgery has less variability than subjective assessment, and the estimation is possible through certain software previously restricted to conservative breast cancer surgery.

Level of Evidence IV

This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.

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Funding

This research was exclusively privately funded.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plastic Surgery Department, Albacete University Hospital, Castilla-La Mancha Health Service (SESCAM), Albacete, Spain

    Javier Monton, Asia Torres, Maria Gijon, Luis Chang-Azancot & Nitzan Kenig

  2. Anatomy and Embryology Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Albacete, Spain

    Javier Monton & Ricardo Insausti

  3. Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute, Altozano Square, 3 – 6th Floor, Albacete, 02001, Spain

    Javier Monton

  4. Department of Statistics, Informatics and Mathematics, Public University of Navarre (UPNA), Pamplona, Spain

    P. Camelia Trandafir

  5. Pharmacology Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), Albacete, Spain

    Joaquin Jordan

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  1. Javier Monton
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Correspondence to Javier Monton.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this article.

Ethical Standards

There was no direct intervention on patients. This study was part of a larger research that compares different methods of breast asymmetry assessment and it was approved by the ethical committee of Albacete University Hospital, Albacete, Spain, on March 2017.

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All participants provided informed consent.

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Monton, J., Torres, A., Gijon, M. et al. Use of Symmetry Assessment Methods in the Context of Breast Surgery. Aesth Plast Surg 44, 1440–1451 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00266-020-01755-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00266-020-01755-6

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