A thoracic wall lipoblastoma in a 3-month-old infant: A case report and review of the literature

Lipoblastoma is a rare benign tumor of adipose tissue seen almost always in infancy and early childhood. Lipoblastoma is present in 2 forms which are pathologically identical: circumscribed and diffuse. It is typically located in the extremities, and less frequently in head-neck region, trunk, and various organs. Lipoblastoma is a tumor with good prognosis with no reported metastases, despite its potential for local invasion and rapid growth. Our patient was a 3-month-old boy who was brought to our clinic for rapidly growing mass in the right hemithorax. With the aim of both diagnosis and treatment, the lipomatous mass was removed by local resection. In addition to the patient's age, histologic and cytogenetic analyses assisted the diagnosis of diffuse lipoblastoma. In the postoperative period, the thorax wall was unaffected, and after 6 years of follow-up no recurrence was observed. In the English literature, 8 cases of thoracic wall lipoblastoma have been previously reported, and only 3 of diffuse form. Here, we report, at our knowledge, the fourth case of thoracic diffuse lipoblastoma, in which cytogenetic analysis showed a previously undescribed karyotype aberration involving chromosomes 8, 13, and 16.