En-bloc resection of a giant retroperitoneal lipoma: a case report and review of the literature

Abstract

BackgroundRetroperitoneal lipomas are an extremely rare condition with only 17 cases described in the literature since 1980. They can reach enormous size and cause significant abdominal symptoms. The most important differential diagnosis is the well-differentiated liposarcoma, which preoperatively often may not definitely be ruled out.Case presentationWe present the case of a 73 year-old Caucasian patient with a giant retroperitoneal lipoma of 9 kg measuring 55 cm in diameter. The patient presented with abdominal pain and swelling that had been slowly progressive for the last 15 years. On computerized tomography an immense retroperitoneal tumor was revealed. Intraoperatively, the tumor did not show any signs of infiltrative growth, therefore sole tumor extirpation was performed.ConclusionRetroperitoneal lipomas are not clearly distinguishable from well-differentiated liposarcomas on imaging and even biopsies may be misleading. Moreover, abdominal symptoms, i.e. pain, obstipation and dysphagia may occur due to mechanical displacement. Therefore, surgical exploration with complete oncological resection is the therapy of choice if malignity cannot be ruled out.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1038-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Giant Adrenal Incidentaloma- Reporting a Rare Case

“…5 Rare sites of lipoma is in the retro peritoneum. 6,7 and adrenal gland. 8,9,4,10 The patient we are reporting had a large lipomatous tumour occupying almost entire left side of abdomen displacing entire pancreas and spleen anterosuperiorly and kidney posteroinferiorly but without causing any pressure effects except for vague back pain (?due to stretching of pancreas) which was encapsulated and dissectible from all the adjacent structures except for superior pole of kidney to which it was densely adherent and had to be separated by sharp dissection using electro cautery-which confirmed the pre-operative suspicion of this being a adrenal tumour (as reported on CT scan abdomen based on fat attenuation values and absence of identifiable left adrenal gland)…”

Giant retroperitoneal lipoma in a child: clinical case

“…Все первичные забрюшинные опухоли составляют только 0,2% всех новообразований [5], большинство (80%) являются злокачественными [3]. Забрюшинная липома может развиваться из жировой, соединительной, мышечной тканей, элементов лимфатической или нервной систем, из брыжейки, фасции Героты или мочеполового тракта [5,6]. Вследствие чрезвычайной редкости диагностика забрюшинных липом у детей врачами первичного звена весьма затруднена [1,2].…”

“…Липогенные опухоли в целом встречаются у 4,2% детей [6]. Среди всех новообразований липогенные опухоли составляют <0,5% [3,4].…”

Staged management of giant bilateral perinephric adipocytic neoplasms

“…Retroperitoneal lipomas are an extremely rare finding and only diagnosed after thoroughly excluding liposarcoma on morphologic and molecular genetic grounds. There have been at least 40 cases in the English literature; some presented with giant abdominal tumors [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. The majority of the reports describe typical lipomas with pure adipocytes on histology.…”