Lipoma of the Retropharyngeal Space

Retropharyngeal Lipoma Causing Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Case Report Including Five‐Year Follow‐Up

“…To our knowledge, there is only one reported case of a large retropharyngeal lipoma that has been managed by observation with serial imaging. 4 The patient we present had multiple comorbid conditions rendering the surgical morbidity extremely high. In such cases, fine‐needle aspiration biopsy and serial MRI scans are a safe alternative.…”

Lipoma of the Parotid Gland

“…The typical signal intensity patterns simulating that of subcutaneous fat (i.e. high signal intensity on T1-weighted images and intermediate intensity on T2-weighted images) and the suppression of the non-enhancing mass in the post-contrast, fat-saturated images are pathognomonic for the fatty nature of the specific pathology 31,32 .…”

Lipomas of the head and neck: presentation variability and diagnostic work-up

“…3,14 Magnetic resonance imaging can also accurately diagnose lipomas pre-operatively, with typical signal intensity patterns simulating that of subcutaneous fat (i.e. high signal intensity on T1-weighted images and intermediate intensity on T2-weighted images, with a weak signal on fat-suppressed images) 15,16 (Figure 4). Moreover, the margin of a lipoma is clearly defined by MRI as a 'black-rim', enabling one to distinguish lipomas from surrounding adipose tissue, a distinction that cannot be made from CT images.…”

“…17 One weakness in the use of current diagnostic imaging techniques in the diagnosis of tumours of fatty tissue is that neither CT nor MRI can differentiate a lipoma from a liposarcoma. 15 This distinction can only be made with certainty by histopathological examination. Some surgeons thereby recommend complete excision of all evidence of a lipoma to exclude a possible liposarcoma, especially in fastgrowing lesions.…”