Effect of Quilting Sutures on Post-operative Drainage After Mastectomy and/or Axillary Lymph Node Dissection

Summary

Breast cancer is the most frequent type of cancer among Swiss women (5'700 cases diagnosed every year). Mastectomy is indicated when breast conservative surgery is not possible or by patient wish. Axillary lymph nodes dissection (ALND) is indicated primarily for node-positive breast cancer.

Postoperative seroma after mastectomy and axillary clearance is a common complication, occurring in 25 to more than 60% of patients with breast cancer. After mastectomy and/or ALND conventional wound closure commonly uses suction drain to prevent seroma. However, seroma frequently occurs after drain removal. Excessive fluid accumulation in seroma stretches the skin, resulting in patient discomfort, impaired ipsilateral shoulder function and higher risk of surgical site infection and prolongs the hospitalization. In rare cases, a fibrous encapsulated seroma is resistant to conservative treatment and requires surgical resection. Thus, seroma may also impact health care costs requiring longer hospital stay or unplanned outpatient visits and may delay adjuvant therapy.

Recent data suggest that quilting suture through flap fixation reduces the incidence of seroma. Therefore, quilting suture has the potential to increase patients' quality of life, as well as to shorten the length of hospital stay and to reduce hospital costs, providing the rationale for this study.The aim of our project is to compare the efficacy of quilting suture with that of conventional closure without quilting in reducing the drainage quantity, the length of hospitalisation and the prevalence of seroma following mastectomy and/or axilla for breast cancer, as well as the patient reported pain increasing patient quality of life.

The final goal is the omission of axillary drainage in the future. All randomised patients will be followed for 12 weeks. Patients will fill in 2 questionnaires (EQ5-D: European Quality of Life and Brief Pain Inventory: BPI). The Health Economic Analysis form (HEA) will be completed by the investigator collecting the patient data.

Total duration of study: 2.5 years. There are 2 treatments groups 50% of the study participants will be treated with quilting suture and 50% with conventional closure. Patients are randomly divided into the 2 groups. All patients are blinded to the surgical treatment.This means that they do not know which surgical treatment they have received (quilting suture or conventional closure), The operating surgeon will not see the after the operation. Seroma assessment will be performed by other medical personnel, that do not know which surgical treatment has been given. In case of seroma a physician (not the operating surgeon) will perform the aspiration of seroma if needed.

Conditions

• Breast Cancer Female

Interventions

PROCEDURE

quilting

After mastectomies or ALND dissections using standard technique for wound closure multiple sutures (monocryl 3.0) every 3 to 4 cm in the site of the mastectomy (1 or 2 rows) or in the dissected axilla.Placement of one drain into the breast and axilla or in the axillary cavity by a separate stab incision

PROCEDURE

conventional suture

After mastectomies or ALND dissections standard technique for wound closure. Placement of one drain into the breast and axilla or in the axillary cavity by a separate stab incision

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Bern

  collaborator OTHER

• StiftungLindenhof

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Lindenhofgruppe AG

  lead INDUSTRY

Principal Investigators

• Gilles Berclaz · Brustzentrum Bern

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-02-19

Primary Completion

2020-10-01

Completion

2020-10-01

Countries

• Switzerland

Study Locations