Lipomas of the gastrointestinal system

Abstract

Lipomas are rare benign tumors in the gastrointestinal system. Within the gastrointestinal system, 65% of the lipomas are located in the colon (sigmoid part of the colon or rectum) and rarely in the stomach and esophagus. The paper presents two gastrointestinal lipomas. First is the case of lipoma of the sigmoid colon and the other one is gastric lipoma. In both cases the material was sent for histopathological analysis due to suspicion of malignancy of the lesions. In both cases, the histopathologic analysis showed tumor made of mature adipocytes, localized in the submucosa both of the stomach and intestine. Hypercellularity and/or atypia of the cell was found in neither case. Lipomas are shown because of its atypical localization and clinically suspicious malignancy in the stomach and sigmoid colon. These cases show that the applied methods of preoperative diagnosis of tumors in the gastrointestinal system are not sufficient to determine the origin and biological behavior of tumors. Histopathological diagnosis provides a correct insight into the nature of tumors and determine the course of treatment. This paper presents a rare localization of lipomas in the gastrointestinal system. The preoperative diagnosis of lesions in the gastrointestinal system may not be sufficient to determine the origin and biological behavior of the lesions, hence the histopathological diagnosis gives an accurate insight into the nature of the change, preventing the possibility of further aggressive therapy.