SOMAVAC® joined the breast surgery community at the Atlanta Breast Surgery Symposium to learn, listen, and engage around the realities of postoperative care.
The conversations and clinical perspectives shared at the meeting continue to inform how we think about recovery, outcomes, and patient-centered innovation.
The conversation we came for
The Atlanta Breast Surgery Symposium draws the breast surgeons and reconstructive teams who see the same pattern every week: the operation goes well, and then the patient spends the next two to three weeks managing drains at home. That stretch is where the experience, and often the outcome, is decided.
Seroma management came up again and again. Fluid that isn’t evacuated collects in the space where tissue was removed, keeps drains in longer, and raises the risk of complications and reoperation. The tool most patients are sent home with, the Jackson-Pratt bulb, has not changed since 1971 and loses its vacuum as it fills.
What we brought
SOMAVAC® is the only smart surgical drain pump: a small, battery-powered device worn on a belt under clothing that holds continuous, sensor-controlled suction at −100mmHg. It accepts up to four drains through one-way connectors in a fully closed system, and fluid collects in a marked bag for non-touch disposal: no squeezing, no milking the tubing, no safety pins.
Because suction is continuous rather than fading between manual resets, fluid keeps leaving the body and tissue layers heal together. In a prospective mastectomy study, patients had their drains removed up to 30% sooner: 11.4 days on average versus 16.3 days with JP bulbs. The Hecox study also reported an 86% reduction in return to the OR.1,2
Our thanks to the organizers and to every surgeon who stopped by to talk through what postoperative care actually looks like in their practice.
1. Data on file. Prospective mastectomy study, N=45, p=0.003. 2. Hecox study, SSPRS 2026, n=49, p=.05.
