Incidence of the superficial fascia and its relevance in skin‐sparing mastectomy

Abstract

Histologic evaluation revealed that the SL is not present in all breasts and, thus, cannot serve as a reliable plane of dissection. Furthermore, if the SL is present microscopically, then it often is too thin and delicate to be detectable macroscopically. Finally, even if the SL is present and visible macroscopically, the distance to the overlying skin is so small in the majority of patients that a dissection superficial to the SL would not leave viable skin flaps in skin-sparing mastectomies.