Soft Tissue Tumors - Lipoma arborescens

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Soft Tissue Tumors

Adipose tissue

Lipoma arborescens

Reviewer: Charanjeet Singh, M.D. (see Reviewers page)
Revised: 11 November 2012, last major update June 2012
Copyright: (c) 2003-2012, PathologyOutlines.com, Inc.

General
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● Fatty infiltration of subsynovial connective tissue in a large joint
● Rarely affects synovial sheaths of tendons (J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 2009;99:153)

Terminology
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● Also called villous lipomatous proliferation of synovial membrane, diffuse lipoma of joint
● Not a WHO diagnosis

Epidemiology
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● Rare
● Older patients, usually male, associated with joint trauma, degenerative joint disease and chronic arthritis

Clinical features
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● Usually knee
● May be a reactive process
● MRI is useful in diagnosis (Radiol Med 2005;109:540)

Case reports
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● 24 year old man with multifocal lipoma arborescens (Skeletal Radiol 2005;34:536)
● Bilateral knee involvement (Knee 2005;12:394)

Treatment and prognosis
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● Synovectomy
● May recur since often is a reactive process

Gross description
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● Yellow fat in villous fronds

Gross images
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Villous lesion in knee

Micro description
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● Hypertrophic villous projections of fat lined by synovial cells, variable scattered inflammatory cells

Micro images
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Various images

Additional references
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● Stanford University, Ann Saudi Med 2011;31:194

End of Soft Tissue Tumors > Adipose tissue > Lipoma arborescens

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