Gynecomastia

Aaron Stone MD - Plastic Surgery: Gynecomastia

Aaron Stone MD - Plastic
Surgery
2080 Century Park East #1110, Los Angeles, CA
310-843-9021
www.aaronstonemd.com http://twitter.com/aaronstonemd
www.aaronstonemd-plasticsurgery.blogspot.com

A board certified cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgeon
performing plastic surgery of the eyes, face, ears, nose, breast,
abdomen, thighs in Los Angeles, California.

Sunday, April 25, 2010
Gynecomastia
Gynecomastia means enlargement of the male breast. The definition has nothing to do with what
causes the enlargement or what tissue it is composed of. It is most common around puberty & can
involve one or both sides of the chest. Most commonly the enlargement is centralized in the
breast but occasionally it is not. It is present to some degree in about a third of male population.
It appears either early in adolescence or later in the adult years of life and can be very disruptive
in the life of a teenager or adult. Working out in the gym, going to the beach and changing in the
locker room can become unpleasant ordeals.

The causes can be classified as:

1. Physiological
r Newborn-caused by placental hormones & resolves within a few weeks
by itself
r Adolescence-caused by alterations in estrogen:testosterone ratio & usually resolves
after puberty (usually within 1 to 2 years only 7% of patients still have it after 3
years and 65% of adolescent boys have a temporary breast bud)
r Aging (involutional)-caused by testicular failure & treated by testosterone
replacement
r Obesity-caused by the conversion of androgens to estrogen in peripheral fat &
treated first by diet/exercise/weight loss

2. Pathological
r Deficient production or action of testosterone
r Congenital defects
r Testicular infection
r After testicular trauma
r Increased estrogen production as occurs with obesity or certain tumors
r Tumors within the breast or other organs
r Liver, adrenal or thyroid disease including alcohol induced liver disease
r Decreased serum testosterone from kidney failure & hemodialysis

3. Drug Induced

http://aaronstonemd-plasticsurgery.blogspot.com/2010/04/gynecomastia.html (1 of 12)4/25/2010 10:07:27 AM


r Steroids including anabolic steroids used by body builders
r A wide variety of prescribed medicines such blood pressure medication
r Heroin
r Marijuana

4. Familial-inborn error of metabolism

The majority of cases are physiological or drug induced. Evaluation
by a qualified physician is required to see which category you fall into.
The treatment of the physiological category is straightforward while the
pathological is more complicated. Drug induced gynecomastia just requires
stopping use of the drug. If the gynecomastia is resistant to treatment
or is the adolescent type but persistent surgery is required. Gynecomastia arising before the
onset of puberty requires a vigorous diagnostic workup because of the possibility of life
threatening or shortening pathology.

Grades of Gynecomastia
The specific surgery required for treatment depends on the type of tissue contributing to the
breast enlargement and the severity of gynecomastia i.e. the amount of extra skin present.
Gynecomastia is graded as follows:

q Grade I =Small breast enlargement with localized button of tissue that is concentrated
around the areola. This is usually glandular with minimal fat contribution and only requires
surgical removal of the glandular tissue. I prefer to do this through an incision around the
lower half border of the areola so it is less visible after surgery.

Grade I Gynecomastia

q Grade II =Moderate breast enlargement exceeding areola boundaries with edges that are
indistinct from the chest. These are fatty-glandular and require surgical removal of
glandular tissue with or without removal of adjacent fat to give the best overall shape. I
prefer to remove this fat using liposuction because that gives the best skin surface contour
afterward. Usually these patients do not require any skin removal.



Grade II Gynecomastia

q Grade III =Moderate breast enlargement exceeding areola boundaries with edges that are
distinct from the chest with skin redundancy present. This patients require skin removal
and the pattern of removal/incision is based on the amount of skin that needs to be
removed. Smaller skin removals can just be ellipses or half moon shaped sections right

next to the areola.
Grade III Gynecomastia-moderate severity



Grade III Gynecomastia-more severe

q Grade IV =Marked breast enlargement with skin redundancy and feminization of the breast.
These require removal of breast tissue under the skin and the breast skin as well.



Grade IV Gynecomastia

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons has recommended health insurance coverage for grade
III and IV adult gynecomastia. Surgery for grade I and II is not considered medically necessary, it
is cosmetic and therefore insurance coverage is not recommended. Individual health plans
however differ in their written policies for coverage of gynecomastia. At least in California
coverage of Grade IV is mandated by state laws regarding insurance coverage of reconstructive
surgery.

Dealing with Extra Skin



The way to assess the amount of excess skin
is to take the measurements depicted above. The sternal notch to nipple distance should be 18 to
20cm, the midline to nipple distance should be 11cm, areola diameter should be 3cm and the
nipple to chest abdomen junction should be 5 to 6 cm apart. Deviations from these measurements
should be taken into account when planning the pattern of skin removal that needs to be
removed at surgery. In most patients with extra skin the breast tissue has stretched the overlying
skin, gravity pulls it downward and the treatment is simple removal of a crescent of skin above
the areola. Some surgeons believe that the skin will shrink after removal of the underlying breast
tissue and therefore never remove any skin. Although this may be true for patients in their early
teens I do not believe that is the case for adult patients past that age. In my experience these
patients are very unhappy if excess skin when present is not addressed at the same surgery.

After liposuction and rhinoplasty, gynecomastia surgery is the third most common cosmetic
surgery procedure performed on men in the United States.

CASES



This is a 29 year old, 5' 11"
tall, 186 pound indvidual with sternal notch to nipple distances of 23cm and nipples 11cm from
the midline. These measurements indicate that there was excess skin before surgery. I performed
liposuction to remove the fat portions, directly cut out the glandular portions behind the nipples
and then cut out 2cm high crescents of skin from just above the areola. I chose that method to
get the most results with the smallest amount of skin incisions.



This is a 29 year old, 5'10"
220 pound individual who had lost 130 pounds by dieting. This left him with a lot of excess skin
over large areas of the body. In this case I cut out the excess fat and removed a 1cm crescent of
skin from the upper edge of the areola. He had an abdominoplasty - tummy tuck at the same time
and I was able to pull some chest skin down towards the abdomen in the process which gave him
more chest skin tightening with less chest skin scarring.



This is a 33 year old
individual with feminizing features. The sternal notch to nipple distance was 21.5cm on the right
and 22cm on the left, midline to nipple distance was 8cm and areola diameter was 4cm. This case
is clearly more severe than the others and in order to achieve a male appearance the nipples
have to be shortened, the areola diameter decreased and extra skin and breast tissue removed. I
did so by removing an ellipse of skin with underlying breast tissue. The upper edge of the ellipse
lied above the areola while the lower edge was at the chest-abdomen junction. I then sutured the
edges together and created a new smaller hole for nipple and areola in a better position on the
chest wall.

About Me
Aaron Stone MD
Los Angeles, California, United States

A board certified cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgeon performing plastic surgery of the eyes,
face, ears, nose, breast, abdomen, thighs in Los Angeles. Yale University Medical School graduate,
Office Address: 2080 Century Park East #1110, Los Angeles, CA 90067 (310)843-9021 www.
aaronstonemd.com

Gynecomastia

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