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What You Need To Know about Surgical Drains with Suction & Infection after Breast Surgery

What You Need To Know about Surgical Drains with Suction and Infection after Breast Surgery

After a mastectomy or breast reconstruction surgery, you will most likely have one or more drains with suction (also known as JP drain or hemovac) put into the area of your surgical incision to stop fluid from collecting in the surgical site. Without drains in place, fluid can accumulate in the breast or lymph area, causing pain and pressure. There’s also a possibility of seroma (aka fluid collection) developing. According to Very Well Health, “seromas can delay wound healing and result in infection and a poor cosmetic outcome.”  A direct correlation between surgical drains, seroma,  and infection is yet to be established, but they are clearly associated as shown in literature. Suction has been shown to play an important role in keeping fluids flowing out of the site and minimizing the risk of build-up.

Of the more than 800,000 U.S. surgical patients needing suction at the end of the drains for multiple weeks at a time annually in general and plastic surgery, approximately 20% experience complicated seromas requiring painful and costly interventions such as aspirations, which add more than a $1 billion burden to the U.S. healthcare system.

Surgeries That Typically Require Surgical Drains:

Surgeries requiring drains involve large surgical flaps such as mastectomy, abdominoplasty (tummy tuck), cosmetic surgery, hernia surgery, and orthopedic procedures. You may have only one drain, or multiple, depending on the surgery and your surgeon’s preferences.

Signs and Symptoms of Surgical Infection:

  • A fever with a temperature of 101 degrees F or higher
  • Redness of your skin surrounding the drain
  • Hardness or firmness where the drain exits your body
  • Thickening rather than thinning of the drained liquid
  • A sudden change in the smell, texture, or color of the drainage

What are patients saying about drains?

Many fear the risk of rolling over in bed, on the drain, dislodging it, and causing the contents to empty on bedding. Bulbs and other manual suction devices are also known for having other issues such as leakage, clogging, and patients struggling to follow instructions, leading to inaccurate use of the drains.

Michele Squires: 12-year survivor – “Life often takes you places you never thought you would travel… In May of 2004, I left an operating room having undergone a double mastectomy for breast cancer at 43. If that diagnosis wasn’t scary enough, being sent home with clunky, cumbersome drains was another shock. I was told that myself or my caregiver would have to “strip-drain-measure” the contents of the messy drains four times a day – for the next three weeks until I visited my surgeon for removal. I never thought life would take me to this diagnosis or to this difficult place of having to rely on someone to care for my surgical sites in this way. It never occurred to me that there might be a choice in how my surgical aftercare was conducted. Fast forward to 2016 – I was excited to learn about this improved post-surgical option offered by Somovac Medical. Many features will help the patient to maintain their dignity after this difficult and emotional surgery. Using a hands-free option of the removal of fluid and allowing the patient to be more mobile and get back to their life quickly; is something that I would have welcomed in my recovery.”

Patients should know that they now have a better option.

SOMAVAC Creates Novel Medical Solutions:

Traditional suction bulbs are cumbersome and unable to apply continuous suction. This is why we created the SOMAVAC® SVS, a surgical drain pump that improves the recovery experience. Our goal is to make surgical drains work as effectively as they can to ensure the success of your or your loved one’s surgery with minimal work. We created a clean and simple system that delivers continuous suction to effectively remove fluids in a patient-friendly way.

  • SOMAVAC is wearable and compact for your mobility.
  • SOMAVAC has one-click, disposable collection bags that provide clean and odor-free drain care.
  • SOMAVAC is the only battery-operated suction device available to effectively remove surgical drain fluid without the use of manual JP bulbs.

What are surgeons saying about the SOMAVAC® SVS?

“Surgeons have been using closed system drains in operative patients for decades. There has been no improvement in our ability to drain postoperative spaces for over thirty years. We have all experienced problems with long post-op drainage periods that delay subsequent treatments, impede wound healing, and increase infection risks. This new technology is a promising step forward, and I look forward to the potential benefits it could bring to my patients.”
Dr. Martin Fleming (Chief of Surgical Oncology, UTHSC, Memphis, TN)

Request more information about our SOMAVAC SVS® by clicking here.

Thank you for your interest in SOMAVAC®. Please contact us at (833) 766-2822 or email [email protected] for immediate assistance.

The SOMAVAC Team