Aesthetic and functional outcome after oncoplastic breast conserving surgery

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jörg Heil
• Subject Area: Gynaecology and Obstetrics
• Term: from 2012 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 228906973

Aesthetic and functional outcome are important influencing factors on quality of life after breast conserving therapy. To measure these outcomes, valid study instruments are needed. Without valid measurements a systematic development and amelioration of breast conserving techniques is not possible. Aim of the project is to further develop the existing and already examined instruments (an objective software-based analysis of photographs and a patient questionnaire) in order to 1. study the sensitivity of changes of the instruments during a long term follow-up (using the patients of an existing prospective cohort study after 1-4 years after the surgery. Until now we could only study the short term outcomes, but the long term results are the far more important ones. It is very important to find out if the above mentioned study instruments are able to determine long term changes within clinically defined subgroups of the cohort. Analysis of re-test reliability of the patient questionnaire is urgently needed. 2. ameliorate the knowledge of the empiric distribution of the measurements of aesthetic and functional outcome in subgroups defined by age, tumor size, tumor location, breast size and shape to have valid estimates for planning future studies. Within this part of the project we need to analyse the influence of the different surgical procedures and clinical situations (age, tumor size, tumor location, breast size and shape, etc.) on aesthetic and functional outcome measured by to two mentioned instrument to explore their ability to differentiate between these situations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professorin Geraldine Rauch, Ph.D.