[Surgical treatment of gynecomastia]

Gynecomastia describes a benign increase of the mammary gland in men. When medical treatment fails, the surgical procedure is the treatment of choice. There are two main surgical procedures: subdermal mastectomy and liposuction.

To evaluate the results after surgical treatment (mastectomy) performed in a general surgery unit.

We performed a retrospective study; all the patients operated for gynecomastia were reviewed. The clinical, imaging, biological, intraoperative and histological data were included into a MS Access database and statistical analyzed.

From 1990-2007, 114 patients were admitted in the First Surgical Clinic Iaşi for gynecomastia. Only 12.6% from the patients were with bilateral gynecomastia. The mean age was 40.54 +/- 1.83 years old (range 12-84). Mean body mass was 26.72 +/- 0.46 kg/m2 (range 18.5-41), and about 20% from the patients had a BMI of over 30 kg/m2. We also noted that 46.5% were smokers. Simon classification was used for preoperative staging: 2.6% from the cases (N = 3) were included in stage I, 16.7% (N = 19) in stage IIa, 50% (N = 57) in stage IIb and 30.7% in stage III. The patients included in stages IIa and I are younger then the patients included in stage III (p = 0.024). Mastodynia was noted in 46 cases (40.4%). Ultrasound exam was performed in all the cases, and the larger diameter of the nodule measured was 3.75 +/- 0.18 cm (range 0.5-9.7). Only three cases were preoperatively treated with tamoxifen. Most of the cases were operated using general anesthesia (53.5%). Mastectomy was performed by peri-areolar (70.2%), elliptical (28.9%) or radial (0.9%) incisions. The subdermal mastectomy using peri-areolar approach was performed especially for the cases included in stages I, IIa and IIb--p < 10(-3). The epi-pectoral vacuum drainage has been used in 79.8%. The postoperative morbidity rate was 15.8%--4 cases of hematoma, 13 cases of seroma and 1 case complicated with skin necrosis. No specific risk factors for postoperative complications were found by univariate and multivariate statistical analysis. The pathological exam revealed pseudo-gynecomastia in 6 cases; the other cases presented dilated ducts. We also noted intraductal papillary hyperplasia in 87 cases and chronic inflammation in 35 cases. The histological exam also revealed intraductal papilloma--9 cases, fibro-adenoma--1 case, papillary ductal carcinoma--1 case and mucinous carcinoma--1 case. From all these data, the etiological diagnosis in presented series was: pseudo-gynecomastia--5.3% (N = 6), idiopathic--64.9% (N = 73), endocrine--7.9% (N = 9), drug induce--5.3% (N = 6), metabolic--7.9% (N = 9), tumoral--8.8% (N = 10). The postoperative hospital stay was 4.04 +/- 0.26 days (range 1-12). A literature review has also been performed.

The management of gynecomastia has to be performed by a multidisciplinary team. Gynecomastia it is possible to be associated with a breast cancer, even in younger people. The surgical treatment, especially the type of incision, will be chosen from point of view of Simon stages. Liposuction can be associated in selected cases.