Mesenteric lipomatosis presenting as abdominal mass with concurrent ileal gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST): an unusual presentation

Abstract

Lipomas are benign tumours consisting of mature fatcells and are perhaps the most common neoplasm. It can be solitary or multiple occurring throughout the whole body, but it can rarely originate in the intestinal mesentery. These tumours have very little potential for malignancy with the incidence of sarcomatous change in less than 1% of cases. Concurrent occurrence of gastrointestinal stromal tumour which arises from the mesenchymal components of the gastric and small bowel mucosa is a rarity. Here we present a rare case of mesenteric lipomatosis presenting as mass per abdomen which on evaluation and exploration of abdomen turned out to be multiple mesenteric lipomas with another hard mass arising from the antimesenteric border of the small intestine (ileum), for which mesenteric lipoma excision and resection of hard mass along with the segment of ileum and end to end anastomosis was done.