Open Access CASE REPORT Severe gynaecomastia associated with highly active antiretroviral therapy Faith C. Muchemwa1,2, Clarice T. Madziyire2 1. Department of Surgery, College of Health Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe 2. Department of Immunology, College of Health Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe Correspondence: Dr Faith C. Muchemwa (
[email protected]) © 2018 F.C. Muchemwa & C.T. Madziyire. This open access article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), East Cent Afr J Surg. 2018 Aug;23(2):80–82 which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ecajs.v23i2.6 Abstract The association between gynaecomastia and HIV infection was first reported in 1987; however, there were no subsequent pub- lished reports of gynaecomastia linked to HIV infection until highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was introduced. Although HAART significantly improves the prognosis of HIV infection, its extensive use has resulted in multiple adverse effects, including benign breast enlargement. We present a rare case of severe gynaecomastia in a male patient with vertically transmitted HIV on HAART. He was surgically treated with mastectomy with no nipple-areolar complex reconstruction. The pathology report con- firmed the benign nature of the breast tissue. Surgical intervention resulted in an improvement of daily activities and enhanced psychosocial wellbeing. Benign bilateral breast enlargement of this magnitude in a male patient has never been reported.