Breast cancer is usually treated with local surgery, sometimes in combination with radiotherapy and system therapy, which affects the entire body. A frequent complication following breast cancer surgery is the development of seromas. These refer to accumulations of fluid in the area surrounding the wound, which can lead to infections that can reopen the sutures of the wound. Seromas occur in between 20 to 30 percent of all breast cancer patients who have undergone surgery, putting healing at risk, causing pain, as well increasing the risk that the entire breast or new implants could be lost.

“We do not know why seromas form,” explains Nina Ditsch, professor for operative and conservative senology at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Augsburg and head of the Breast Centre at Augsburg University Hospital. She is leading the new study on postoperative seromas in breast cancer patients. “We would like find out which patients have an increased risk of developing these accumulations of fluid in the area surrounding the wound following surgery, and on this basis develop future therapies and preventative measures.”

Finding an immunological marker

Ditsch suspects that immunological and inflammatory processes may lie behind the development of seromas. The aim of the new study “Seromas in breast surgery” (Serome in der Mammachirurgie, SerMa) is therefore to find an immunological marker that is associated with their development. The first preliminary results of a small study are already promising. In this study, specific T-helper cells were found in seromas as well as in the blood of the patients. By contrast, this marker was not detectable in blood samples taken from healthy test subjects.  

The new study will also conduct a microbiological analysis of the tissue located around the surgical area as well as of the tumour itself. In order to determine how much the development of seromas is linked to the tumour, the study will include healthy patients who have had a mastectomy due to high hereditary risk as well as patients who have had breast surgery for purely cosmetic reasons. Among breast cancer patients, the study will include women who have had breast implants for breast reconstruction as well as patients without implants.

The study plans to collect data from approximately 2,200 patients over three years.

Personalised breast surgery

“The results of the study will hopefully make it possible in future to identify patients with high risk with a blood test. We could then develop a general strategy to prevent complications,” explains Ditsch. “This would represent a further step forward in personalised breast surgery.”