Heat Build-Up: Problems With Post-Mastectomy B

Heat build-up is one of the most commonly reported issues with post-mastectomy products. Although there is a wide range of products that claim to solve the heat build-up problem, many of them are not properly tested by a scientific performance evaluation method. This creates discomfort for the wearers who already suffered enough from the mastectomy experience. The purpose of this study is to introduce both a newly designed heat-reduction mastectomy bra for the clothing comfort and a performance evaluation protocol utilizing body core temperature (Tcore) for the post mastectomy products. The heat-reduction mastectomy bra is designed with ventilation holes along the center and lower parts of bra cups in order to promote air circulation. A commonly used
Each experiment lasted 90 minutes in total per bra and it was conducted inside a chamber where temperature and relative humidity were controlled at 25 ºC and 70%RH respectively. Participants’ attire for the experiment was provided in order to minimize experimental errors and thus they consist of a commercial mastectomy bra, a newly designed heat-reduction mastectomy bra, two breast prostheses, a brief, a tracksuit top and a running short. The results showed the mean Tcore of the conventional mastectomy bra (37.3 ºC ~ 38.2 ºC) was consistently higher than the mean Tcore of the newly designed heat-reduction mastectomy bra (37.2 ºC ~ 38.0 ºC) during all five phases. The mean Tcore differences between the conventional mastectomy bra and the newly designed mastectomy bra ranged from 0.1±0.3 ºC to 0.2±0.5 ºC (p<0.001) although the Tcore change patterns during five phases are similar in two