Hospital stages annual art contest that uses bras as a fun way to contemplate a difficult topic: breast cancer
Breast cancer and laughter are infrequent companions.
That is, until you ask dedicated health care professionals to find a way to use a common bra to send a message.
The third-annual Breast Reconstruction Awareness (BRA) Day contest at St Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick features bras that are hilarious, pun-ridden, somber, profound, and everything in-between. The contest is the hospital's way of drawing attention to the surgical options available in breast reconstruction.
The top two finishers based their artwork on a pun. For Michele Goodman, office manager of the hospital's Breast Center, it was a pirate-themed "Treasure Chest" bra - complete with an eye patch.
"Your breasts are beautiful. Treasure your life, treasure your chest," she said in describing her entry's theme. "Get your mammogram, and you'll have a much better chance of staying on top of it."
The Marlboro mom had her three boys - ages 10, 7 and 3 - help with her project.
Second place went to a lifesaver-theme undergarment created by Linda Demski, of Hamilton Square, who is mammography manager at the hospital. Her entry was a bra covered with lifesavers, attached to its own lifesaver, with the motto of, "Mammograms save lives."
Her favorite part of the contest is what happens later: The bras are displayed on the walls of the Breast Center, where they never fail to lighten the mood.
"They add a whimsical touch to a very stressful experience," she said.
Four out of five of the more than 100,000 women who pursue breast reconstruction annually opt for implants instead of reconstruction using their own tissue, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
Those implants are vastly different than the ones used a generation ago, or even five years ago, said Dr. Robert Herbstman, an East Brunswick plastic surgeon who spoke at the event.
During an earlier health scare about the safety of the original silicone implants, surgeons switched to using saline implants instead, which could and did leak on occasion.
The silicone implants used today now have a long safety record behind them, he said.
In addition, the sizing of implants has become much more finely tuned, so that they can more closely match each patient's body.
"We take measurements and select implants that will be very proportionately fitting to the patient," he said. "It's not one-size-fits-all."
Another new development in the field is fat grafting, which uses fat liposuctioned from other regions on the patient's body to provide the finishing touches for either a mastectomy or a lumpectomy.
Fat grafting took some time to win acceptance out of concern its presence would get in the way of clear mammogram or other images during follow-up monitoring, Herbstman said.
"The whole field of fat grafting has really taken off over the last 5 years," he said.
Kathleen O'Brien may be reached at kobrien@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @OBrienLedger. Find NJ.com on Facebook.