Aesthetic assessment of breast reconstruction in the eyes of plastic surgeons versus nonplastic physicians

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the perception of the aesthetic result of breast reconstruction surgery from the perspective of plastic surgeons compared with physicians who are not specialists in plastic surgery. METHODS: Twenty patients who underwent breast reconstruction after mastectomy had their aesthetic results evaluated by 16 plastic surgeons and 16 nonplastic physicians, yielding a total of 620 ratings (320 ratings from plastic surgeons and 320 ratings from other specialists). For all analyses, the level of rejection adopted for the null hypothesis was 5% (p-value <0.05). RESULTS: Significant differences were observed between the two groups. On average, medical professionals who specialized in plastic surgery always obtained higher scores than other physicians. However, no significant differences were found in the assessment of the aesthetic outcome of breast reconstruction according to the sex of the rating medical professional for any of the assessments considered in this study. A strong positive linear correlation between the time since training in the medical specialty of plastic surgery (r=0.750, p=0.001) and the mean aesthetic outcome score was observed in this study. CONCLUSION: Plastic surgeons assessed the aesthetic results of breast reconstruction more positively than nonplastic physicians.