Fat Embolism After Surgery for Gynecomastia

Abstract

Gynecomastia is a benign enlargement of the male breast, secondary to gland proliferation and is a common problem among the male population. Treatment is primarily surgical. The most common intra- and postoperative complication is bleeding, followed by seroma, infection, insufficient results, inverted nipple and nipple necrosis. The embolism is one of the non-specific complications. A 24-year-old male was presented to the Surgery Department with a diagnosis unilateral gynecomastia. The operation proceeded without complication and around 10 hours later, the patient complained of weakness in all four limbs, later nausea, and vomiting and after full cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the patient died. The main reason for the patient’s death was concluded to be a postoperative pulmonary thromboembolism and fat embolism was discovered. In addition, there was a papillary carcinoma of the thyroid, which was missed before. We reported that unilateral gynecomastia associated with papillary carcinoma of the thyroid detected rarely at autopsy and fat embolism after surgery for gynecomastia is a rare complication.Key words: Gynecomastia, fat embolism, autopsy