Background and Objective

The success of a Plastic Surgery intervention is in its planning. Anthropometric measures are important in preoperative evaluation to improve surgical outcomes; however, anatomical variants in each patient can alter this planning.

Our objective is to locate, through radiological verification, the anthropometric anatomical references of the thoracic skeleton that allow the anthropomorphic points and lines necessary to plan breast surgery to be projected more precisely in the chest, namely: position of the areola-nipple complex, submammary groove and meridian of the breast.

Methods

We conduct a retrospective, descriptive and cross-sectional study evaluating postero-anterior and lateral chest radiographs in a general population of women, to determine the precise anatomical reference points in the thorax of the location of the submammary groove (SS), of point P (highest breast projection, nipple) and breast meridian (point M).

Results

On a total of 61 radiographs in women between 11 and 40 years of age, the point of maximum projection of the nipple was located in the fourth rib and the fourth intercostal space in 87% of cases. In 98% the submammary groove coincided with the sixth rib. We determined a difference of 1 to 2 cm between the mammary meridian chosen by the mean between anterior and mid-sternal axillary line and that located in the midclavicular line in 88% of cases.

Conclusions

Determining fixed structures of the thoracic skeleton that are constantly related to structures and references of the breast (nipple, submammary groove and breast meridian), gives the plastic surgeon objective criteria for the selection and projection of key points in the planning of breast surgery, with proportion and harmony individualized in each patient, in order to obtain more aesthetic and symmetrical results.

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