1990 Volume 40 Issue 1 Pages 133-138
Retroperitoneal liposarcoma is a relatively rare disease.Recently we treated a case of a huge retroperitoneal liposarcoma weighing 9.0 kg. This case involved a 48-year-old female who complained of abdominal swelling and was admitted to our hospital. We diagnosed a retroperitoneal tumor and performed surgery.
At operation, a huge orange-yellow tumor with a soft elastic consistency occupied most of the intra-abdominal space. As the tumor was wrapped in a pseudocapsule, we easily separated it from the surrounding organs except for the left adrenal gland. Eventually we resected it completely with a part of the left adrenal gland.
The tumor size was 42×30×15 cm and the weight was 9.0 kg. In histological examination, some tumor cells were observed to be spindle shaped, some ones were star-like and others were round. The interstitial tissue was myxomatous and many blood vessels were included. A few lipoblast cells existed and most tumor cells had granules positive to oil-red-O stain. No tumor cells were seen in the left adrenal gland. The final diagnosis was myxoid-type liposarcoma. The total number of cases of liposarcoma in Japan is 178. However only four of these hal tumors weighing more than 10 kg which could be resected. The capsule of the liposarcoma is a so-called pseudocapsule and it causes frequent invasion and difficulty of complete resection. In our case, a very small part of the pseudocapsule may have remained so that we must carefully follow up the patient's course.
