Breast Lift – What is a Crescent Lift Mastopexy?

A Crescent Mastopexy is a small Breast lift that has two principal virtues:

  1. It is technically simple
  2. It has a very well disguised scar

Hear me illustrate how a crescent lift helps with mild asymmetry during a breast augmentation:

The Crescent Mastopexy is perfect for situations where only a small breast lift is needed. As I have become  familiar with the technique, I use it exclusively for small breast lifts. There is no need for a lot of scars when a well disguised scar will do. The Crescent Mastopexy gives me the flexibility to get the breast implant and the nipple areolar complex placed exactly where I want.

Let’s take the case where the breasts hang just a little. Before the Crescent lift technique was available, plastic surgeons had the choice of either:

  • doing a full breast lift with a lot of scarring or
  • placing the implant lower on the chest wall

Doing a full breast lift with a lot of scars is not desirable for a patient who only needs a small lift. Likewise, placing the implant lower on the chest wall results in little upper pole fullness (top of the breast) and less lifting of the breast as a whole. If the patient wants more upper pole fullness, the surgeon can place the implant higher, but if the nipple stays in the same location, the nipple will look low in relation to the implant, the opposite of perky. This is referred to as the snoopy dog look after the famous cartoon dog’s nose. Another solution is to use a larger implant to achieve upper pole fullness, but the patient may not be comfortable with a large implant if all she wanted was a perky breast with upper pole fullness.

The Crescent breast lift allows me to get perkiness, upper pole fullness, and the size of implant the patient wants. It is a great breast lifting procedure and I use it a lot, especially on women who have breastfed.

Another area where the Crescent breast lift has improved my results is in cases of mild asymmetry. Whereas before I used to tell patients to accept a mild asymmetry, now I can offer the patient a much better result by using the Crescent lift mastopexy. The video above illustrates these concepts much better than words can.

By Dr. Ricardo L. Rodriguez MD Board Certified Plastic Surgeon Cosmeticsurg Baltimore, Maryland Ricardo L. Rodriguez on American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

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