iBRA 2 has now closed to data entry. Data analysis is now underway. Certificates for collaborators will be sent out over the summer.

At the last count there were 2654 records in the database. A big thank you and well done to everyone involved!

Rajiv Dave and Tim Rattay presented an update at the 3rd iBRA Study Day.

90 centres and 212 collaborators are contributing to the study. The target is to recruit 3000 patients. The study includes centres in Italy and Greece.

To date 713 patients have been recruited. It is vital for units to continue recruiting patients over the study time period. Well done to everyone who is taking part!

Background

Approximately 51,000 women each year will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and of these, up to 40% may require a mastectomy as the primary surgical treatment for their disease. The loss of breast can profoundly impact women’s quality of life and body image and, immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) is routinely offered in the UK to improve outcomes.

Complication rates following immediate breast reconstruction are important as they may lead to the delay or omission of important adjuvant cancer therapies such as chemo and/or radiotherapy. The clinical significance of short delays is unclear, but delays of between seven and 12 weeks have been shown to adversely impact on key oncological outcomes including recurrence free and overall survival. Furthermore, a recent meta-analysis suggests a 15% decrease in overall survival for every four week delay in the delivery of adjuvant chemotherapy.

Aims and objectives

The aim of iBRA-2 is to work with the Breast Reconstruction Research Collaborative network to evaluate the impact of immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) on the delivery of adjuvant therapy. It has the following objectives:

1. To determine the proportion of patients undergoing mastectomy +/- IBR who experience a post-operative complication
2. To determine the proportion of patients undergoing mastectomy +/- IBR who require adjuvant chemo and/or radiotherapy
3. To determine the proportion patients undergoing mastectomy +/- IBR who experience a delay to or omission of their adjuvant therapy as a results of a surgical complication and predictors for adverse outcome (type of surgery, age, BMI, co-morbidities, smoking, neoadjuvant chemotherapy; bilateral surgery etc)
4. To determine the time to adjuvant therapy (TTT) following mastectomy +/- IBR
5. To generate high-quality data to inform decision-making for patients and health professionals
6. To build on the network created by the iBRA study to include oncologists and build capacity for future research studies

International hospitals

iBRA2 welcomes collaboration with international breast and plastic surgery units. To date units in The Netherlands, Italy, Australia and USA are joining the study. If you would like to get involved, sign up below and contact ibra2study@gmail.com.

How do I get involved?

iBRA2 is now recruiting units. If you would like to be a collaborator, complete the form below and the team will get in touch. Joseph Ward and Marie Kearns are the RSTN Trainee Leads for the project.

The download section contains the project protocol and more detailed information.

The table at the bottom shows a live update of the units involved with the current collaborators.

Questions? Contact ibra2study@gmail.com.