Disgraced Former Breast Surgeon Ian Paterson was jailed for 20 years in 2017 for wounding 10 patients. New inquests are now investigating the deaths of 62 more patients.
Birmingham and Solihull Coroner’s Court is currently conducting an inquest into the death of Elaine Turbill, who died in 2017, 12 years after Paterson performed what he called a “cleavage sparing” mastectomy operation on her. The allegation is that this kind of mastectomy left more breast behind than a standard mastectomy, including parts that could cause the cancer to come back later.
Ian Paterson and the cleavage-sparing mastectomy
Giving evidence remotely, Paterson said it would be “crazy” to leave breast tissue behind during such surgery. He denied it was a new kind of operation he had invented, but said it was instead an “adaptation” of a standard mastectomy and denied describing it as a “cleavage-sparing mastectomy”. He said breast surgeons aimed to remove all breast tissue when carrying out mastectomies, but in practice this was never 100% successful. He drew a distinction between glandular breast tissue and the subcutaneous fatty tissue, some of which he would retain.
The inquest heard that when she was examined in 2010, Elaine Turbill had 20% of her breast tissue left behind by Paterson. But he said it was “not an objective measure” and that when carrying out operations of this type he was “as near as possible certain that I wasn’t leaving behind glandular breast tissue“.
Did Ian Paterson’s patients understand their surgery?
Paterson said that it was not his normal practice to discuss the specifics of operations in great detail with his patients – he believed it scared them and so left those conversations to nurses. He insisted there was no further risk to patients than during a standard mastectomy, where he said there was always a risk of some tissue being left behind.
Paterson said he did not tell his colleagues he was performing the cleavage-sparing procedure as he “didn’t think it was anything other than a better cosmetic result”. Paterson told the Coroner he stopped performing his version of a mastectomy as soon as he was informed by hospital chiefs in 2007 that more research was needed.
The inquest continues.