ABSTRACT
Breast cancer is a malignant tumor that starts in breast cells. There are different types of breast cancers: ductal carcinoma in situ, invasive ductal carcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, and inflammatory breast cancer. Besides breast reconstruction, the majority of mastectomy cases also require nipple/areola reconstruction. Nipple sparing mastectomies in small-to-moderate size breast typically render the best cosmetic outcomes, though there are not always good results due to the nature of breast cancer. Results of available nipple areola complex (NAC) reconstruction techniques can be unpredictable. This chapter focuses on developing a three-dimensional (3D) printed engineered adipose tissue graft to apply, especially during breast reconstruction after a solid tumor removal for breast or NAC reconstruction. Fused deposition modeling, a 3D printing technique, was utilized to create an areola nipple complex prototype made from ABS plastic. NX software was used to design the 3D rendering of the NAC prototype.
