Tuberous breasts (or what some people call tubular breasts) denotes a developmental condition of the breasts that causes significant embarrassment and body image issues for women who have this problem. During the growth phase of breasts during puberty, some women have excess tightness of the breast skin combined with an abnormally high inframammary fold (crease under the breast). This issue with skin tightness and abnormal height of the fold have a number of consequences.
First of all, the breast is unable to fill out properly because it is constrained by the skin and the inframammary fold. Instead of turning into a round breast with normal cleavage, the breasts end up having a narrow, tube-like shape. The breasts tend to start high on the chest and can be very widely spaced. Finally, the developing breast tissue is often forced through the tight, tube-shaped skin into the looser skin of the nipple and areola, causing very oversized, puffy-appearing areolas. The degree of tuberous breast can be the same on both sides, however there is often significant breast asymmetry (difference form one side to the other) as well.
Proper correction of tuberous breasts is one of the most difficult challenges in breast surgery and requires a significant amount of prior experience. In my Scottsdale area medical practice, I frequently see women with varying degrees of this disorder, from very mild to severe. The surgery to correct this problem may be done in a single stage, or multiple stages depending on the severity of the condition.
Like all of my surgical procedures, I look at each tuberous breast case as a unique challenge. My goals are to lower the inframammary fold to a normal position, to expand the lower breast skin and tissue, to reduce the areola size to a normal diameter, and to create round, natural appearing breasts with appropriate cleavage. Frequently I am able to do this in one procedure by placing a breast implant, lowering the breast fold and internally scoring the breast tissue to allow it to expand, and performing a circumferential tightening and raising of the areola. Occasionally, if the skin is extremely tight, this process may take more than one surgery.
