Deep muscular lipoma of the shoulder. Apropos of 4 cases

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: The authors report 4 cases of inter and intra-muscular lipoma of the shoulder and make a review of the diagnosis of this localization. MATERIAL AND METHODS: All 4 cases had shoulder pain and some limitation of shoulder motion, one had hypoesthesia on the lateral side of the arm. 3 had magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and two ultrasonography examination, three of them had a surgical resection and for one surgery was considered too aggressive and had a MRI control one year later. RESULTS: There was no problem for the surgical procedure and the histology confirmed the diagnosis. The last patient had a rehabilitation program and the MRI control showed lesion stability. DISCUSSION: Lipoma are rare, X-rays, ultra-sonography and CT scans are not sufficient, MRI is the best exploration to differentiate lipoma and lipo-sarcoma, but the main problem is for low grade sarcoma. Histology is the only way to make the diagnosis with the whole tumor.