Background: Gynecomastia is a common condition that refers to the benign enlargement of male breasts. Several minimally invasive techniques were invented to avoid visible scars in the chest area, but have limited effects on the dense fibroglandular breast tissue, and open excision remains the mainstay of treatment. Endoscopic subcutaneous mastectomy has the superiority of visualization, facilitating accurate dissection and hemostasis, also enabling inconspicuous scars. This study was designed to evaluate the patient-reported outcomes of the endoscopic axillary approach in treating gynecomastia, to interpret the differences between it and the conventional periareolar open excision method, and to present our experience utilizing this technique as a reliable alternative for Simon I and II gynecomastia.
Methods: Eighty-three participants diagnosed with Simon I or II gynecomastia were included in this cross-sectional study, among which 31 were preoperative and 52 were postoperative patients. Postoperative participants were divided into two groups according to whether endoscopic axillary subcutaneous mastectomy (axillary group, n = 25) or periareolar open excision (periareolar group, n = 27) was performed. Patient-reported outcomes were assessed using the BODY-Q questionnaire, including the chest, nipples, body image, social, appearance-related distress, and scar domain, with scores ranging from 0 to 100.
Results: The BODY-Q score of both axillary and periareolar postoperative groups showed significant improvement on chest (p < 0.001), nipples (p < 0.001), body image (p < 0.001), and appearance-related distress (p < 0.005) scales, compared with the preoperative group. Of the scar scale, the axillary group rated higher scores than the periareolar group (p = 0.019), analysis of the individual scale items showed more positive responses in questions "Location of your scars?" (p < 0.001) and "How your scars look when they are not covered by clothes?" (p < 0.001), the item "Having to dress in a way to hide your scars?" also had a somewhat more positive responses from participants (p = 0.095).
Conclusions: The present findings indicate that compared with the periareolar excision, patients who underwent gynecomastia subcutaneous mastectomy through endoscopic axillary approach have higher scar satisfaction with postoperative outcomes, this probably because of the well-hidden scar at the axilla, which leverages the psychologic burden of the patient after surgery. Future prospective studies are needed to measure changes over the entire patient journey, to find out the predictable factors of postoperative patient satisfaction, and determine how the objective outcomes relate to changes in patient's health-related quality of life.
Level of evidence iii: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine Ratings, please refer to Table of Contents or online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .
Keywords: Endoscopic; Gynecomastia; Patient-reported outcomes.