[Tumors of the adipose tissue during 10 years of diagnostic activities (1979-1988)].

Adipose tissue tumors in ten years of diagnostic activity (1979-1988). We have reconsidered our material on tumors of adipose tissue, which were observed for 10 years, from 1979 to 1988, at Istituto di Anatomia Patologica dell'Università degli Studi - Arcispedale S. Anna di Ferrara. The whole collection consists of 772 tumors, 742 lipomas and 30 liposarcomas. We have intended to examine the development of our diagnostic experience through time and compare our data with those of literature. Simple lipomas and fibrolipomas are the most common histological types (78.8%), followed by angiolipomas (3.6%) and intramuscular lipomas (2.5%). The other types have a lower percentage. In every cases the morphologic and clinicopathologic features are shown, as well as compared with those of literature, and discordances that may result are interpreted. We are firmly convinced that routine diagnosis is not always compatible with rigid classifications and that it is not easy to use morphologic criteria which vary in quality and quantity. We have consequently aimed at reducing any possible distortion in diagnosis due to subjectivity, by sticking rigorously to consolidated morphology. Although our findings mostly agree with those of literature, some discordances still exist; the most significant of them regard age incidence. Among spindle cell lipomas there are two cases diagnosed in early childhood; the number of angiolipomas as well seems to be very high in this period of life. Particularly important from the clinical point of view has been the decision of diagnosing a thigh tumor as lipoblastoma in an eighteen-year-old boy. Other discordances seem to us less significant, as, for example, the absence of intramuscular lipomas in the thigh, which is to be considered, in our opinion, a chance event that we could not explain otherwise. Liposarcomas represent the 4% of the cases. Only one cases has been diagnosed in a patient less than 40 years old. The location sites agree with those recorded in literature. Our material, on the other hand, does not confirm that the average age of the patients with retroperitoneum liposarcomas is higher than that of the patients with thigh tumors. We has well have identified a greater incidence of retroperitoneum tumors on women. Gross and microscopic findings correspond to those known. Myxoid and pleomorphic liposarcomas are the most common histological types. As regards myxoid liposarcomas, we point out a tumor in the breast in a forty-nine-year-old women. Three of the well differentiated liposarcomas are fibrosing liposarcomas of the spermatic cord. The liposarcomas recurring during the time considered have been seven.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)