Given her extensive family history of breast and ovarian cancer, Shannon Ingram always knew she’d take decisive action to safeguard her health. “Shannon carries a BRCA1 mutation, which significantly increases her lifetime risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer,” says Shannon’s breast surgeon, Lucy De La Cruz, MD, chief of the Breast Surgery program and director of the Ourisman Breast Center at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. According to the National Cancer Institute, women with the BRCA1 mutation face a 55% to 72% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, and a 39% to 44% risk for ovarian cancer.
But Shannon had reason for hope: Dr. De La Cruz also explained that a preventative bilateral mastectomy could reduce her breast cancer risk by 90% to 95%. So at age 48, with her childbearing and breastfeeding years complete, Shannon moved forward with a double mastectomy. And she learned that this path presented hopeful options to help her preserve a sense of normalcy and smoothly resume the joyful lifestyle she loved.
Restoring feeling with nipple-sparing surgery and Resensation® With a husband, three daughters, two kittens, a puppy, a full-time job, and a love of the outdoors, Shannon’s lifestyle is very active. She didn’t want a lengthy surgery or a prolonged recovery. This ruled out the two traditional reconstruction routes: DIEP flap reconstruction, which uses abdominal tissue to rebuild breasts, or implants. Still, Shannon did not want to look totally flat. “I just wanted to keep a little bit of myself,” she says.
Perhaps more concerning than how she would look, Shannon worried if she would still feel like herself. Because a mastectomy severs nerves that provide feeling to the breast, many women experience numbness and even a permanent loss of sensation in the chest area.
The impact can be profound—the inability to feel a child’s hug, a partner’s caress, or even the temperature of a shower—but Shannon’s care team at MedStar Georgetown had solutions. “For Shannon, we employed a nerve-sparing approach during the mastectomy, and collaborated closely with plastic surgery to optimize outcomes for both aesthetic preservation and long-term resensation,” says Dr. De La Cruz.
First, Dr. De La Cruz performed a nipple-sparing mastectomy (NSM), which preserves the nipple-areolar complex while removing all underlying breast tissue.
In addition, Shannon qualified for yet another life-changing innovation. Kenneth L. Fan, MD, plastic surgeon, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at MedStar Georgetown, is one of the few physicians in the Washington, D.C., area to perform Resensation—a technique that uses donor nerve tissue to reconnect chest nerves to reconstructed breast tissue.
While every patient’s experience is different, many notice the return of light touch, temperature, or even pressure sensation within a year. For some, it’s the small moments—like fully feeling a hug from a loved one—that signal something deeper: a renewed sense of connection, comfort, and confidence in their own body.
For reconstruction of Shannon’s breasts, Dr. Fan helped her choose an approach that felt “just right.” “We arrived at a solution called the ‘Goldilocks’ reconstruction. Using this procedure, we fold the remaining breast and skin on itself to create a breast mound, without adding a foreign body.” Altogether, Shannon received a remarkable oncological solution, and something more.
“When you go to MedStar Georgetown, you work with a team of doctors who help you find your path—and they treat you as a whole person every step of the way,” says Shannon. Dr. De La Cruz affirms, “We’re committed to a functional mastectomy approach where cancer prevention is integrated with the preservation of a woman’s sense of self. Through innovative surgical techniques, we strive to restore not just physical form, but also emotional and sensory connection, empowering patients to move forward with confidence and wholeness.“
“Making this choice, you always have doubt and grief,” Shannon says. “But when you have a team like I did, on the other side there’s incredible relief and lightness—and space to think positively about the future, without worrying about not seeing my girls grow up.”
To schedule an appointment or for more information, visit MedStarHealth.org/BreastHealthCenter or call 202-295-0541.