Moving incision for covert breast-conserving surgery may prevent early wound complications in brachytherapy-based partial-breast irradiation.

Purpose: Brachytherapy-based partial-breast irradiation (PBI) is a treatment option for breast-conserving therapy. Although intraoperative catheter implantation has been introduced, early wound complications are a concern. Covert operations with a moving incision are widely performed to hide surgical scars and may reduce the incision-site radiation dose. This study aimed to compare complication rates for moving incision and conventional incision in covert breast-conserving surgery.

Methods And Materials: Between October 2008 and December 2018, the medical records of all patients who underwent PBI using multicatheter interstitial brachytherapy after breast-conserving surgery were examined. Since July 2016, to hide the scar, we have performed a moving incision from above the tumor to an invisible site at our institution. The planning target volume included 1.0-1.5 cm of tissue surrounding the surgical cavity. High-dose-rate interstitial brachytherapy with a dose of 32 Gy in eight fractions was performed. The cumulative incidences of surgical site infections and symptomatic seromas ≤90 days were analyzed.

Results: The study included 516 consecutive patients with 526 lesions. Overall, 40 (7.6%) early wound complications were observed, in which 4 (2.6%) involved 152 moving incisions and 36 (9.6%) involved 374 conventional incisions (p = 0.01). On univariate analysis, age, tumor diameter, re-excision, planning target volume, numbers of catheters and planes, and incision type were risk factors for complications. On multivariate analysis, only incision type was a risk factor. Moving incision reduced the early complication rate by 75% (p = 0.01).

Conclusion: Moving incision in covert breast-conserving surgery reduced the risk of early wound complications.