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Dr. Samra is board certified by The American Board of Plastic Surgery. He is Chief of Surgery at Bayshore Community Hospital. Haute Beauty chats with Dr. Asaad Samra about addressing breast asymmetry. 

Breast asymmetry is very common. I was once told a phrase in my training that I share with my patients that breasts are not twins. They are not sisters. They are neighbors and that is to illustrate the fact that the breasts are very different. When it’s the same person and you would assume that whatever you have on the right, you have on the left. Asymmetry extends from our face to our arms to, of course, our breasts. Some are very mild and therefore does not need to be addressed. Some may be more significant and needs some sort of a surgical correction, especially if we’re doing a breast enhancement or reduction or augmentation.

HB: When would you suggest someone to look into surgery to address breast asymmetry?

I would suggest that first and foremost that they be out of adolescence and have therefore stopped growing. And then the next checkpoint would be that, it’s something that’s significant enough to them that they would want to address. And then if it’s a woman, who we’re typically talking about, the other consideration may be to consider addressing it after child-rearing unless the asymmetry is significant enough that it’s causing them a lot of self-consciousness.

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HB: Do you address breast asymmetry with typical breast augmentation or is there a different way of doing it?

So, to me, breast asymmetry can mean many different things. It can mean that the breasts are very large and one may be smaller than the other. It may be that the breasts are small and one is just differently shaped than the other. So in the setting that the breasts are large with some asymmetry then typically an Asymmetrical Breast Reduction would be the technique to give improvement in shape and size and symmetry. If the issue is that the breasts are too small or have some different shapes, but could use and/or the patient wants volume then breast augmentation is typically the way to go. The other thing is, breast asymmetry can be that one is a droopy breast and one is not so much a droopy breast, in which case we may need to do a lift with an augmentation on one side and just an augmentation on the other.

HB: Does downtime differ between this surgery and others, other breast augmentations?

In considering breast augmentation as the only procedure, versus breast augmentation with some form of additional procedure to correct asymmetry, downtime is actually quite similar because of the fact that the additional lift or repositioning of the breast does not necessarily add to significant downtime, it’s just important to know it would add more incisions. And therefore there is overall more feeling and potentially scarring that we need to be concerned with and care for, but the absolute amount of time is about the same.