Background: Over 90% of women report to be very dissatisfied with the aspect of their breast after bariatric surgery. Breast reconstructive surgeries are often not funded by the National Health Service or private health insurances in many countries and the patient must pay a high economic amount to undergo it.
Patients and methods: A prospective randomized clinical trial of patients undergoing bariatric surgery was performed. Patients were randomly assigned into 3 groups: patients undergoing percutaneous electrostimulation of the pectoral muscle combined with specific training (group 1), patients doing the specific training alone (group 2), and patients without any specific treatment (group 3). The assigned treatment began 15 days after surgery and was maintained during 12 weeks.
Results: Twenty-five women were included in each group. In the posttreatment anthropometric measures significant differences between groups could be observed in Regnault classification (P=0.014), ptosis (P=0.017), and projection (P=0.025). Multiple comparisons revealed that there were no significant differences in all these variables between group 2 and group 3, whereas a significant difference could be observed between groups 1 and 2 and 1 and 3. Median satisfaction score with the prescribed treatment was significantly better in group 1 than in the other groups.
Conclusions: Percutaneous electrostimulation of the pectoral muscle combined with specific training achieves a reduction in the breast ptosis and an increased projection, resulting in greater satisfaction of the patients, when compared with only specific training or without any specific activity.