Familial gynecomastia associated with genital abnormalities: report of a family.

Abstract

THE familial transmission of coexistent gynecomastia and hypogonadism was reported at least as early as 1893 (1). However, the importance of heredity in the transmission of male hypogonadism of varioustypes gained little recognition until recent years. Hereditary gynecomastia had been said to be “very rare” (2). A number of observations, mainly in the interval since 1940, have indicated that careful investigation may reveal familial involvement in a rather high proportion of patients with these abnormalities (3-12). In 1947 Reifenstein and his associates reported a kinship of 10 males, 9 of whom had multiple abnormalities of sexual anatomy and function in which transmission appeared to be through females (6, 13). The authors' discoveiy of a similar family in which maternally transmitted gynecomastia, hypospadias and incomplete descent of the right testis existed in half-brothers, and gynecomastia alone in a maternal cousin, led us to examine the case records of patients with gynecomastia in three hospital...