Thymolipoma: a report of three cases.
Three cases of thymolipoma, seen in a 6 year old boy, a 34 year old woman and a 24 year old man are presented herein. The weight of each tumor was 1380 g, 670 g and 560 g respectively. The 2 male patients had no symptoms and the woman only complained of a fever. On CT scan the thymic tissue was recognized as islands of soft tissue density within a fatty mass, and T1 weighted MRI was helpful in demonstrating the predominant fatty nature of this tumor. Thus, our experience demonstrates that CT and MRI are valuable for establishing a diagnosis of thymolipoma. In a review of the literature on the subject, some clinical features of this non-malignant tumor in the mediastinum are discussed. Although rare, thymolipoma should be considered in the differential diagnosis of mediastinal tumors.
Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Wakayama Medical College, Japan.
O
O
Nishimura
Y
Y
Naito
Y
Y
Noguchi
S
S
Matsuoka
K
K
Takenaka
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008067:Lipoma / Q000473:pathology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008479:Mediastinal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D013945:Thymoma / Q000473:pathology*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed