Gynecomastia Associated with Lung Cancer

¹ Department of Radiology, Division of Therapeutic Radiology, State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center and Kings County Hospital Center, Brooklyn and Deepdale General Hospital, Queens

Four cases are presented as examples to further document the association of lung cancer with gynecomastia. Several hypotheses concerning this relationship are explored, the major of which are that the lung tumor itself produces a substance causing hormonal change, that the presence of a tumor in the lung causes the lung to produce such a substance; that the lung tumor initiates a neural or neurocirculatory reflex resulting in specific end-organ responses; that the gynecomastia is in some way a nonspecific host response to stress or disease, and that the gynecomastia and lung tumor are together or separately manifestations of some unknown factor producing the neoplasia.