Breast reductions: Men vs. Women- is it the same?

Here is a shocker: men and women are different.  When it comes to breasts (and yes, some of you guys have them), the way to fix a large chest is different too.

Breast reductions reduce the size of breasts.  For men, this would be the area they consider “chest.”  When a man comes to me for liposuction, I almost always end up liposuctioning the chest area.  Sometimes what men think is prominent pectoral muscles is fat over the muscle.  (Though not all of it.  If you have been working out, you likely have a lot of muscle there too.)

Men are very different than women.

• Their breast is mostly fat
• It doesn’t tend to droop as much
• They have better skin tone
• Their chest is visible in a bathing suit and other clothes

For men, gynecomastia, moob job- whatever you call it- is done primarily by liposuction, with a small direct excision of breast tissue (if present) using an incision around the areola.  Most men I see though have little to no real breast tissue.  And I almost never need to cut out skin.

Women are different.

• Breast tissue and fat throughout the breast
• The breast droops, especially if your breast is large, you’ve had pregnancies and breastfed, you are a runner…
• Poor skin tone
• You can hide scars better than men

For most women, a huge issue in a large breast is the DROOP.  I think the profound part of a reduction is the LIFT.  In order to do this, you must cut out skin.  That results in a larger scar.  But for most patients it is worth it.  I do a shorter scar vertical lift, which I love for shape and lesser scar.  People talk about liposuction only for women with large breasts.  The issue is the women with the good skin tone, where there is some hope of the breast skin shrinking and lifting, are the young women- and a lot of them have dense breast tissue, which you can’t liposuction.  For the older women, who have a lot of softer fat, they are droopy.  Again, I think 80% of the benefit of a reduction is the lift.