[Surgical treatment of gynecomastia. Indications and methods]

In this paper the authors present their experience in the surgical treatment of gynecomastia; the different surgical techniques used (liposuction, adenomammectomy, liposuction associated with adenomammectomy) are compared bilaterally 42 patients (37 patients) were affected of bilateral gynecomastia, 5 patients monolateral only (age 18-38 years) were treated in the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery-Ca' Granda Hospital of Milan, from 1985 to 1991. 12 patients were treated by the adenomammectomy technique; plain liposuction alone was used in 4 patients only. The associated method (liposuction and adenomammectomy) was performed on 26 patients. The results obtained suggest that the associated method is usually the most effective, because esthetic results are excellent and post-operative complications are very low. In selected cases however the other techniques should be preferred, and the criteria of selection are discussed.