[Galactorrhoea and thoracic surgery (author's transl)]

The authors report 4 cases where galactorrhoea complicated thoracotomy. It was only possible to find 21 cases altogether in the literature where this complication followed thoracic surgery. Galactorrhoea started in the week following surgery. It follows irritation of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th thoracic nerves which induces hyperprolactinaemia. Stress which is linked to the surgery and the drugs used for the anaesthetics can not by themselves be responsible for so persistent a hypersecretion. The galactorrhoea is cured spontaneously in two or three months, and treatment with bromocriptine which might have been prescribed was contraindicated in two out of the four cases that have been reported because there was a Raynaud's syndrome which was the indication for thoracic sympathectomy.