After analyzing your symptoms and clinical history, your doctor will perform a physical examination where they will carefully observe the possible lipoma and will touch it at different points to check its consistency and behavior, as well as identify its degree of sensitivity.
Despite having a clear diagnosis, they will request additional tests to confirm it and rule out any underlying condition or the possible malignancy of the adipose formation:
- X-rays.
- MRI.
- Computed tomography.
- Biopsy.
Sometimes something that looks like a lipoma can turn out to be a liposarcoma, which is a form of cancer, although these are usually hard, painful, and grow rapidly.
As it is a benign condition, no treatment is required for a lipoma unless it is painful or grows too large.
In these cases, there are two treatment options whose use will depend on the lipoma’s characteristics:
- Surgery: surgical removal of the lipoma is the most recommended since it will hardly reappear after the procedure and only causes a little scar tissue and bruising.
- Liposuction: it is less invasive. The fatty matter is extracted through a syringe inserted into the lipoma to dissolve the bulge as much as possible. Not all the fat can always be removed, so it only decreases in size and also has the potential to grow back later.
At ABC Medical Center’s Internal Medicine Department, we offer health care services with the highest quality and safety, from the prevention, diagnosis, timely treatment, and monitoring of infectious, respiratory, endocrinological, dermatological, rheumatic, nephrological, gastrointestinal, and hematological pathologies of both chronic-degenerative diseases and acute conditions, through a comprehensive and multidisciplinary model.
