Differences in breast aesthetic outcomes due to radiation: A validated, quantitative analysis of expander-implant reconstruction
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The potential ramifications of radiation use can be of particular concern in the breast reconstruction population, in which both surgical and aesthetic outcomes are important. Presently, there remains a paucity of data detailing the influence of radiation on specific reconstruction aesthetic outcomes. OBJECTIVE: To conduct a quantitative evaluation of aesthetic outcomes for expander-implant breast reconstruction in radiated and nonradiated patients using a validated scoring scale. METHODS: A series of consecutive expander-implant breast reconstruction operations performed by the senior author between 2004 and 2012 were reviewed. Four blinded members of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Northwestern University (Illinois, USA) independently rated postoperative photographs of patients' breasts using a validated scoring scale with respect to five distinct aesthetic domains. RESULTS: Of the 206 patients meeting the inclusion criteria, 69 received radiotherapy and 137 did not. The radiated cohort had lower scores in each aesthetic domain, with significant differences in contour (1.33 versus 1.51; P=0.041) and placement (1.45 versus 1.73; P<0.001). Linear regression analysis revealed a significant association between placement scores and radiation, and radiated patients had a significantly higher overall rate of complications. DISCUSSION: Variances in scores may represent the relative difficulty of expansions and proper implant placement in irradiated tissue, with possible skin fibrosis and decreased flexibility hindering prosthesis manipulation. CONCLUSION: Radiation adversely impacts breast contour and placement, with possible negative contributions to volume, scarring and inframammary fold definition, and results in higher rates of complications. Such detailed evaluation of the impact of radiation on aesthetics will enhance the management of patient expectations.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".