Peripheral intrapulmonary lipoma: a case report

Lipomas are common benign neoplasms but they rarely occur in visceral organs. Pulmonary lipomas are rare, and most of them are seen in endobronchial localization. Peripherally located pulmonary lipomas are extremely uncommon. There are only eight cases reported in the literature and only one of the patients was female. Our case is the second peripheral pulmonary lipoma in a female patient. The patient is a 38-year old female, who has an incidentally found solitary pulmonary nodule, revealed by X-ray, during routine check-up procedure. A 1.5 cm diameter soft tissue mass was seen in the superior segment of the lower lobe of right lung in computerized thorax tomography. Wedge resection was performed with frozen section evaluation. Histopathologically the well-circumscribed lesion consisted of mature adipose tissue, containing areas of myxoid degeneration, organized as lobules surrounded by respiratory epithelium. The lesion was diagnosed as lipoma. Radiological imaging techniques have high sensitivity detecting the solitary pulmonary lesions but their ability to give information about their nature is limited. Although they are rare, intrapulmonary lipomas should be considered in the differential diagnosis of solitary pulmonary nodules. Wedge resection with frozen section evaluation seems to be the best choice for both diagnosis and treatment.