TY - JOUR AU - Samaras, Stavros AU - Sasaki, Yoshie AU - Malata, Charles PY - 2020 TI - Letter to the editor: applications of rib sparing technique in internal mammary vessels exposure of abdominal free flap breast reconstructions: a 12-year single-center experience of 215 cases JF - Gland Surgery; Vol 9, No 2 (April 28, 2020): Gland Surgery Y2 - 2020 KW - N2 - We read with great interest the article by Zhang and colleagues on the applications of rib sparing technique in internal mammary vessel (IMV) exposure for microvascular breast reconstruction (1). They report a retrospective single institutional study of 215 women who underwent 218 abdominal free flap breast reconstructions, 70 of them using rib-preserving exposure of the IMVs. They compared these with 102 flaps in which the costal cartilage was sacrificed. Their findings that rib sparing IMV exposure is a safe technique with a shorter surgery and hospital stay as well as lower complication rate compared to rib-sacrifice are consistent with our results from a study of the pertinent anatomy of the IMVs during total rib-sparing free flap breast reconstruction (2). Our comments are based on a prospectively collected database of such reconstructions performed by a single surgeon (CMM) using the total rib preservation technique of IMV exposure (3,4). UR - https://gs.amegroups.org/article/view/34087