Last November, at the age of 43, Carol Beebe lost her left breast to cancer. But when she awoke from mastectomy surgery at New York City's Columbia- Presbyterian Medical Center and gazed down at her chest, nothing appeared to be missing. Beebe, an IBM employee from Point Pleasant, N.J., had chosen to have a reconstruction of her breast immediately following the mastectomy. In a single operation, plastic surgeons shaped a new breast from Beebe's own abdominal tissue, moving it into place minutes after the general surgeons had removed the diseased breast. The technique spares the patient the anguish of amputation. "Our...
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