[Peri-sudoral lipoma].

INTRODUCTION

We identified in our files 11 cases of a new variant of the superficial lipoma recently described by Hitchcock, Hurt and Santa Cruz, characterized by the presence of eccrine sweat glands and denominated "adenolipoma of the skin".

PATIENTS AND METHOD

We examined 1,742 skin lesions registered in the Laboratory for Skin Histopathology from January 1989 to August 1996. These lesions were 397 lipomas, 1,325 skin tags (acrochordons) of which 120 with a fatty stroma and 20 connective tissue hamartomas of which 7 superficial lipomatous hamartomas. Among these lesions we looked for those corresponding to the prime description of the cutaneous adenolipoma.

RESULTS

We identified 11 cases of adenolipoma, i.e. a frequency of 0.65 p. 100 for the whole examined lesions and 2 p.100 among the 524 lesions with a fatty component (lipomas, lipomatous hamartomas and fibrolipomas). The mean age of the patients was 50 years and the sex-ratio F/M 1.75. The lesions were localized on the lower limbs (7 cases), especially on the thighs (4 cases), on the trunk (3 cases) and on the shoulder (1 case).

DISCUSSION

The adenolipoma is quite different from the common cutaneous lipomas. It develops within the dermis or the fatty layer. It is a solitary lipoma most often localized on the proximal parts of the limbs, especially on the thighs. Histologically it presents as a lobulated and capsulated tumor where eccrine sweat glands and ducts are present inside the fatty lobules. Apparently the adenolipoma originates from the fat pad around the sweat coils without proliferation of the sweat glands or ducts; this entity should therefore be denominated "perisudoral lipoma" rather than adenolipoma. It has to be differentiated from the skin tags with a fatty stroma (fibrolipomas) and from the superficial lipomatous hamartomas.