It would be “crazy” to leave breast tissue behind during a mastectomy, a disgraced breast surgeon has told an inquest into the death of one of his patients.
Ian Paterson was jailed for 20 years in 2017 for wounding 10 patients, by carrying out an unauthorised procedure which left behind tissue.
New inquests are investigating the deaths of 62 patients, including 63-year-old Elaine Turbill in 2017, 12 years after Paterson performed a mastectomy.
Giving evidence remotely from prison, he claimed it was not him who coined the term “cleavage-sparing mastectomy” and said it was the phrase that had “caused the hysteria”.
Speaking in general terms, he told the inquest that breast surgeons aimed to remove all breast tissue when carrying out mastectomies, but in practice this was never 100% successful.
He said it was possible in some patients to leave thicker flaps, but that did not mean leaving breast tissue behind.
The inquest heard another surgeon, Andrew Stockdale, had raised concerns about the amount of residual tissue left behind in mastectomy operations carried out at the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, where both worked.
Paterson said he was aware his colleague had been collecting evidence of this, but that the matter had not been raised within multi-disciplinary team meetings, which brought together NHS colleagues to discuss a patient’s treatment.
Paterson also spoke about a delay in getting biopsy results for Ms Turbill, which he said was because of a shortage of trained staff and staff-leave.
One of his colleagues, radiologist Dr Chris Fletcher, told the inquest on Wednesday that the breast surgeon was a “nightmare” to work with and that multi-disciplinary meetings were “always difficult” because Paterson “always tried to run the show”.
The inquest continues.
