Breast reconstruction surgery

Our plastic surgery team provide a consultant-led service at Charing Cross Hospital to reconstruct breast and chest wall defects.

We are specialists in microsurgery, including the most complex form of breast reconstruction known as free flap reconstruction.

Conditions and treatments

The most common reason for breast reconstruction is following a mastectomy, where the breast is removed or partially removed during treatment for breast cancer. Breast reconstruction takes place at Charing Cross Hospital. Reconstruction surgery can also be needed following heart surgery, and our team supports the cardiac team at Hammersmith Hospital when required.

Free flap breast reconstruction surgery is a form of microsurgery that involves taking tissue such as skin, fat and sometimes muscle (a flap) from another part of the body to form a new breast. Unlike breast implants which degrade, this type of surgery provides a permanent solution. As the new breast needs a good blood supply to survive, the surgeon either leaves the tissue connected to its original blood vessels or cuts the vessels and reconnects them to existing blood vessels under the arm or in the chest wall.

We now perform over 200 of these complex breast reconstructions per year, and have a success rate of over 99 per cent. Recent improvements to the service include introducing satellite clinics at Northwick Park and the West Middlesex hospitals and a breast reconstruction seminar held weekly at Charing Cross Hospital. We also provide less complex forms of breast reconstruction including pedicled flaps (where the tissue is not disconnected from its original blood supply) and breast implants.

The team are also specialists in body contouring after significant weight loss, as well as providing breast reductions, uplifts, breast augmentation, fat transfer and nipple reconstructions where funded by the NHS.

Further online resource

• NHS Choices – breast reconstruction
• Macmillan Cancer Support – breast reconstruction information 
• Cancer Research UK – about breast reconstruction 
• British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons – patient information on reconstructive surgery