Over 55,000 women every year are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK and despite improvements in treatment, almost 40% of these will require surgery to remove the whole breast (mastectomy). Having a mastectomy can dramatically affect women’s wellbeing and breast reconstruction is routinely offered to address this.

Decision-making for breast reconstruction, however, is complex. This is because several different procedures can be performed, and women need detailed and accurate information about the short and long-term outcomes of different operations so they can make an informed decision about surgery. Such information is currently lacking. 

Over the last decade, Shelley Potter, Associate Professor of Oncoplastic Breast Surgery, has been working to establish a much-needed evidence base for reconstructive breast surgery. She leads research into the outcomes of implant-based breast reconstruction and studies to determine whether it is possible to use oncoplastic breast conserving surgery, operations that combine removing the breast cancer with plastic surgical procedures to rebuild or reshape the breast, to avoid the need for mastectomy. Her work is funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR), the Royal College of Surgeons, Association of Breast Surgery and the Bristol and Weston Hospitals Charity.

Miss Potter also currently leads the NIHR-funded Brighter Study which is using routinely collected hospital record data and questionnaires to investigate the longterm clinical and patient-reported outcomes of different approaches to breast reconstruction. This internationally novel work will help women make more informed decisions about breast reconstruction in the future. 

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/population-healthsciences/centres/surgical-research/

Publications: 

• Johnson L et al. (2023). Impact of procedure type on revision surgery and secondary reconstruction after immediate breast reconstruction in a population-based cohort. Cancer Research.
• Sewart E et al. (2022). The impact of radiotherapy on patient-reported outcomes of immediate implant-based breast reconstruction with and without mesh. Annals of Surgery. 
• Potter S et al. (2020). Therapeutic mammaplasty is a safe and effective alternative to mastectomy with or without immediate breast reconstruction. British Journal of Surgery.