With another American woman being told she has breast cancer an average of once per hour, there are a lot of women facing the loss of one or both breasts because mastectomy, and while it's generally agreed that an aggressive approach to cancer treatment is a good thing, this surgery can be devastating to the women who have it. We do, after all, live in a society where body image is a fundamental element of society, and for many women their appearance is the key to their confidence.

The good news is that Michael Miller, MD, a plastic surgeon at Ohio State University Medical Center, can prevent mastectomy patients from having to spend even a single day without their breasts, by offering same-day reconstructive surgery.

In a report provided by Medical News Today, Miller explained that he uses fatty tissue from a woman's stomach area to reconstruct her breast just after her mastectomy surgery has been completed. This tissue, he explained, has the best chance of success because it has an ample blood supply. As well, abdominal scars are easy to hide. Other sources of tissue are the back and the thighs, but Miller sometimes uses implants as well. All of his methods, however, are guaranteed not to interfere with any continuing cancer treatments.

Miller cautions that not every woman undergoing a mastectomy are candidates for same-day reconstructions, but he recommends that every woman facing this surgery insists on a plastic surgeon being present on the treatment team, just in case.

Most women don't even know that same-day reconstruction is an option, but those who do, and have the reconstruction done immediately, adjust more quickly to post-surgery recuperation and on-going treatments.