ISSUE #20 ABDR NEWSLETTER

December 4, 2023

Welcome to the latest Australian Breast Device Registry (ABDR) update. 

National Recruitment

Our thanks to Australians undergoing breast device surgery, their surgeon/clinician, and health care facilities, who continue to support the work of the ABDR. View 300+ participating sites here.

ABDR Annual Report

In exciting news, the ABDR 2022 Annual Report is on track for release in mid December. Every year, the ABDR annual report undergoes a comprehensive review, including by our consumer representative and Clinical Leads. Our thanks to members of ABDR governance teams for their time to ensure accurate and relevant reporting of more than 100,000 surgical procedures captured by the registry. The 2022 report includes additional device information, reconstructive surgical trend data, improvement in reconstructive revision rates at 12 months, updated BIA-ALCL data, and case ascertainment data which highlights very good reporting of initial breast implants but a reminder for clinicians to also include breast device revisions and explants.

Registry Governance Update

The ABDR has two new committees to meet evolving governance needs of this registry.
1) The Clinical Advisory Committee (formerly the Management Committee) supports and advises the ABDR on clinical matters to ensure that the ABDR is clinician-led, and remains informed of relevant clinical practice in breast device surgery and related issues.
2) The Research and Data Sharing Sub-committee (RADS) is a sub-committee of the ABDR Clinical Advisory Committee, which reviews all requests for de-identified ABDR data, and reports produced by this registry. RADS was formed in recognition of the increasing interest in the ABDR’s data and the importance of clinician input into these activities. Requests for data should be emailed to abdr@monash.edu

PROMs Revamp

Critical feedback from surgeons and consumers is driving a new, targeted PROMs (Patient Reported Outcome Measures) program for breast reconstruction patients. The previous PROMS program, which ran between 2017 – 2020, included both cosmetic and reconstruction patients and has been reported in previous ABDR annual reports.
Rollout of the new PROMs tool, the Psychosocial Wellbeing and Satisfaction with Breasts scales for Reconstruction Patients, is slated for early 2024, with more information to follow closer to release.

ABDR Presentations

Members (and former members) of the ABDR team continue to share progress and outcomes from this important registry, engaging with surgeons and clinicians, and academics nationally and internationally. Presentations since April this year include: