# Method for assessing women's perceptions of their appearance in the context of breast cancer care

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN · 2021 · $432,988

## Abstract

The goals of reconstructive surgery are to restore function and minimize differences in form (appearance)
resulting from congenital conditions, disease, or trauma. There are substantial and sustained quality of life
benefits of mitigating form differences through reconstructive surgery.
Many women choose to undergo breast reconstruction to mitigate the form changes resulting from breast cancer
and its treatment. Breast reconstruction is the most common reconstructive procedure that is performed
exclusively to ameliorate form differences, as opposed to a combination of functional and form intents.
Contemporary surgical techniques cannot restore normal breast sensation or lactation, but can recreate a breast
form that is satisfying to the patient, facilitating her psychosocial adjustment to living as a breast cancer survivor.
The core principles of healthcare ethics are autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence. A particular
challenge in the ethical delivery of reconstructive surgery is the difficulty of informed consent about appearance
change. Shared decision-making about reconstructive surgery requires that patients have realistic expectations
about how their bodily form will be changed. But, it is difficult for patients to articulate their expectations of how
their appearance will be changed by reconstructive surgery, and likewise difficult to evaluate the impact of
interventions intended to foster realistic expectations of surgical outcomes.
The overarching goal of this exploratory study is to develop a method for assessing a woman's perception of the
current appearance of her torso and how her appearance will be changed by breast cancer treatment despite
mitigating reconstructive procedures. Our approach is inspired by the psychophysical tenet that internal
representations of stimuli can be inferred from experiments in which physical stimuli are controlled and observers'
responses to the stimuli are measured. We propose a systematic method for representing a woman's perception
of her appearance based on how similar she perceives herself to be to a set of 3D reference photographs.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10196213
- **Project number:** 1R21EB031317-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
- **Principal Investigator:** Mia K Markey
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $432,988
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-16 → 2024-09-15

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10196213

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10196213, Method for assessing women's perceptions of their appearance in the context of breast cancer care (1R21EB031317-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10196213. Licensed CC0.

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