Breast Lift

Another type of breast surgery offered is the breast lift. Dr. Albert Chow performs a variety of techniques enhance lost breast volume at his San Francisco practice.

There are women who come in after having had children or who are a little bit older and have lost volume in their breasts and/or have had a significant amount of sagging in their breasts. We can treat this with a breast lift, which is basically moving the nipple and their breast structures further up, either with or without an implant. How it is done is through three standard approaches. One is to do a circular lift, which is for those who have a mild amount of droopiness and random loss of volume. We can actually make a little ring of an incision and move the nipple and areolar complex with the nipple up and then purse string it around and the nipple generally lifts the breast and you can also put an implant in there if you don't have the volume that you wish. The other technique is a vertical technique, which I do a lot of. I believe that's in many ways a superior technique. This actually moves the nipple-areolar complex upwards and then basically sutures the breast to itself and reposition it toward chest with sutures as well and overtime as that breast settles down, actually it turns out to be a very very natural shaped breast with minimal scars. And then lastly, which is a very traditional type of breast lift is to do an inverted T which means that you lift everything and then you make a cut underneath the fold, up and down and then around the nipple, so it looks like an upside down T or sometimes referred to as an anchor incision.