Intramuscular spindle cell lipoma of the deltoid: a case report

INTRODUCTION: Spindle cell lipoma is an uncommon adipocytic tumor. Intramuscular lesions of this tumor are very rare. In this report, we describe a case of a patient with intramuscular spindle cell lipoma localized in a deltoid. CASE PRESENTATION: A 58-year-old Japanese man visited us because of a soft tissue mass on the lateral aspect of the left shoulder that had been noticed 2 years prior. The spherical tumor, which measured 5cm×4cm, was elastic and firm on palpation and immobile. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed that the lesion was localized in the left deltoid muscle. A needle biopsy was performed to make a histological diagnosis. With a pre-operative diagnosis of intramuscular lipoma, we removed the tumor with the patient under general anesthesia. The tumor was removed with surrounding musculature and fascia. The pathological diagnosis was intramuscular spindle cell lipoma in the left deltoid muscle. CONCLUSIONS: There are several kinds of lipomas. Spindle cell lipoma is a relatively rare variant (1.5% of all adipocytic neoplasms) that is histologically distinct and characterized by the replacement of mature fat by a mixture of mature adipocytes and undifferentiated spindle cells. There are only five other reported cases of intramuscular spindle cell lipoma in the literature, to our knowledge. The case of our patient is very interesting, as to date there have been few reported patients with a diagnosis of an intramuscular spindle cell lipoma in a deltoid. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13256-014-0509-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.