Transplantation in Breast Reconstruction

Abstract

The field of plastic surgery has always dealt with the issue of molding tissue and tissue transfer. For this reason and others, the fact that plastic surgery was the historical forerunner of transplant surgery is no surprise. This evolution was demonstrated very clearly in 1954. This was the year that Dr. Joseph E. Murray and a team of surgeons in Boston performed the first successful kidney transplant between identical twins. The transformation of this one aspect of plastic surgery into the field of transplant surgery has continued to evolve ever since. Kidney transplants between unrelated patients are now commonplace in many medical centers. The practice of transplantation has come to include several other organs and complex tissues such as the pancreas, liver, and hand. Now, most recently, tissue has been transferred from one identical twin to the other for the purpose of breast reconstruction. For the first time ever documented, a deep inferior epigastric perforator flap and a superficial inferior epigastric artery flap were transplanted from one identical twin to another in two separate cases for the purpose of breast reconstruction. The following article briefly discusses a contemporary history of transplantation and provides these two case reports of this seminal procedure between identical sisters.