Background: Minimally invasive (robotic or laparoscopic-assisted) nipple-sparing mastectomy combined with prosthesis breast reconstruction (NSM-PBR) is associated with smaller scars and greater patient satisfaction. However, the oncological safety of minimally invasive NSM-PBR remains controversial.
Patients and methods: This was a retrospective study of patients with breast cancer who underwent breast reconstruction between 1 January 2006 and 20 February 2021. Demographic and clinicopathological characteristics, operation information, postoperative complications, and survival outcomes were analyzed.
Results: In all, 292 patients underwent minimally invasive NSM-PBR and 205 underwent open NSM-PBR for breast cancer. In the minimally invasive NSM-PBR group, 268 (91.8%) patients underwent laparoscopy and 24 (8.2%) patients underwent robot-assisted NSM-PBR. Mean operation time in the minimally invasive NSM-PBR group was significantly longer than that in the open NSM-PBR group (P = 0.023). Mean intraoperative blood loss was significantly less in the minimally invasive NSM-PBR group (P < 0.05). There was no significant between-group difference in total complications. Similarly, there were no significant between-group differences in overall survival, recurrence-free survival, and local recurrence rate (P = 0.450, P = 0.613, and P = 0.679, respectively).
Conclusions: The complication, recurrence, and mortality rates in minimally invasive NSM-PBR group were comparable to those in open NSM-PBR group. Our preliminary results are encouraging and suggest that minimally invasive NSM-PBR affords good cosmetic results and its oncological safety is comparable to that of open surgery.
Keywords: Breast reconstruction; Complication; Minimally invasive NSM–PBR; Survival.
© 2022. Society of Surgical Oncology.