Lee Jee Yeon, Seo Hyung-Il, Park Eun Young, Kim Gwang Ha, Park Do Youn, Kim Suk
Department of Surgery, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Yangsan, Korea.
J Korean Surg Soc. 2011 Dec;81(6):427-30. doi: 10.4174/jkss.2011.81.6.427. Epub 2011 Nov 25.
Pancreatic lipomas are commonly diagnosed based on radiologic images, although the prevalence of lipomas has not been established. Histologic confirmation of pancreatic lipomas is extremely rare because surgical treatment is unnecessary in most cases. Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration cytology has been suggested to avoid unnecessary surgery to distinguish between a lipoma and a well-differentiated liposarcoma; however, surgery would be needed when the tumor is associated with symptoms or difficult to distinguish from a liposarcoma. We present a case of a pancreatic lipoma in a 54-year-old male patient that was histologically-confirmed by subtotal pancreatectomy.