Gynecomasty: histological aspects in a surgical material.

In a consecutive and unselected series of 83 patients operated upon for gynecomasty, the histological and related clinical aspects were studied. It was convincingly demonstrated that gynecomasty begins in an active proliferating phase and ends in a fibrous inactive phase. Contrary to previous authors we found it justified that the formation of lobules, indistinguishable from what is seen in the reproduceable age in the female breast, is not necessarily related to the administration of exogenic hormones. In five (6.5%) cases, typical multicentric foci of intraductal epithelial hyperplasia were demonstrated--of the atypical hyperplastic or early intraductal carcinoma type. It was concluded that the clinical significance of such morphological changes must not be overestimated.