The programme Reporters, presented by Michaël Miraglia and broadcast on RTL TVI in Belgium, had the excellent idea of devoting a report to medical tourism. To make it, the team of journalists followed two young Belgian patients, Océanie and Marie, who came to Istanbul with Body Expert for their medical treatment. The Body Expert team had the honour of orchestrating the stay for everyone involved, and the report goes out on Friday 12 November 2021 at 7.50pm, on RTL TVI. You can also find the piece on RTLPlay.

Océanie came to have a breast enhancement with a lift. As for Marie, she came to have 20 dental crowns fitted along with a gummy smile correction. Delighted with the result, both were kind enough to tell us about their stay and how their respective treatment went.

Tuberous breasts are a congenital difference in breast development that becomes visible at puberty. A tight fibrous ring at the base of the breast prevents the gland from spreading normally across the chest wall, which gives the breast a narrow footprint, an elongated shape and often a wide areola with breast tissue herniating into it. Correction is surgical, it combines three distinct manoeuvres, and it frequently takes more than one operation. This article explains the signs that identify the condition, the three-grade classification surgeons work from, the techniques available, and what published studies actually report about outcomes, revision rates and breastfeeding.

Breast size and shape vary enormously between women, and that variation is not a medical condition. Tuberous breasts are something different: a developmental deficiency of the mammary gland, mainly in its lower and medial portions, combined with a constricting ring at the base of the breast. That is what separates them from breast ptosis, where the gland developed normally and later descended with age, pregnancy or weight change. The burden women describe is primarily psychological, and it is usually sharper when the two breasts are markedly asymmetrical.

One point about frequency needs correcting, because figures circulate online that no study supports. The authors of the reference review published in the Annales de Chirurgie Plastique Esthétique state plainly that the incidence is unknown, precisely because milder forms are harder to diagnose and go unrecorded. Cleveland Clinic says the same thing: the exact rate of occurrence is not established and many cases are never diagnosed. What is documented is that the condition appears only during breast development at puberty, that it affects the shape of the breast rather than the health of the woman, and that it is distress, not physical risk, that brings patients to a consultation.