Is there Enough Justification for Questioning Body Mass Index (BMI) as Exclusion Criteria of Reduction Mammoplasty in the Surgical Treatment of Symptomatic Macromastia?
Background: Despite the fact that reduction mammaplasty is an effective and efficient treatment to symptomatic
macromastia, frequently, women demanding this treatment are accepted or not depending on body mass index criteria.
The aim of this work was to compare changes of quality of life on obese and no-obese women who undergoing breast
reduction mammaplasty.
Methods: A prospective study was performed on 56 consecutive women undergoing bilateral reduction mammaplasty
for symptomatic macromastia, 21 of them had a BMI lower than 30 (No-obese group) and 35 with 30 or higher BMI
(Obese group). Short Form SF-36 quality of life questionnaires were answered at interviews a week before the surgery
and six months after. To evaluate the change of quality of life we used “effect size”.
Results: Preoperative SF36 scores did not make differences between both groups. Six months after surgery only
postoperative physical score of no-obese patients was significantly higher than obese one (52.11 vs 48.47, p>0.05). Both
groups increased clearly their quality of life showing an increment of all SF36 domains with an effect size ranged from
0.53 to 2.07. More than seventy percent of obese women improved their scores exceeding means of preoperative
scores.
Conclusion: According to our results and the fact that the main goal of the breast reduction is ameliorate the quality of
life there is no justification for exclusion obese patients with BMI >30 who suffer from symptomatic macromastia from
reduction mammaplasty