[Breast morphology in Turner's syndrome. A prospective multicentre clinical study about 21 cases]

The Turner's syndrome encompassed several conditions, of which monosomy X (absence of the entire sex chromosome X) is most common. It is a chromosomal abnormality in which all or part of the sex chromosomes X is absent. Typical females have two X chromosomes, but in Turner's syndrome, one of those sex chromosomes is missing or presents abnormalities. Patients show a shield shaped thorax with thick and bulging chest, breast hypotrophy and widely spaced nipples. The objective of this study was to characterize the breast abnormalities observed in Turnerian.

We describe a prospective multicentric study (August 2007-March 2008) on 21 nullipar patients, ranging from 16 to 35 years old. Six were monosomic and 14 were Turner mosaic (in this case the chromosome is missing in some cells but not others), 19 were treated with estrogens and progestatives. This study was achieved through the use of clinical examinations including body, waist, hips (BWH) measurements and photography. The statistical method involved a descriptive analysis, linear correlation calculations and student test.

The breast morphology appears to be quite closed to that of the general woman population, but with average thorax volume more bulky mainly in the anteroposterior zone, and with more reduced breast volumes. No specific abnormalities in the chest development were observed. No differences in the hypotrophy, hypertrophy, and normal breast volume repartition were observed between monosomic and mosaic patients. The self-satisfaction index on the breast look is quite low, patients mainly complain about breast hypotrophy. Nevertheless, these results are not representative of the whole turnerians, since this study address only to volunteer patients and we cannot exclude possible distortions.

In contrast to common beliefs, we don't have observed any increase of the average of the internipple space; this observation is in good agreement with the most recent published literature works, which report only an apparent increase of this intermamelonary distance versus the thoracic width (in front view), probably caused to an optical distortion effect.