Thoracic lipoblastoma in a 6-year-old African male: a case report




Javier Arredondo-Montero, Pediatric Surgery Department, Hospital Universitario de Navarra, Pamplona, Navarra, Spain
Mónica Bronte-Anaut, Pathology Department, Hospital Universitario de Araba, Vitoria, Spain
Carlos Bardají-Pascual, Pediatric Surgery Department, Hospital Universitario de Navarra, Pamplona, Navarra, Spain


Lipoblastoma is a very infrequent tumor, characteristic of early childhood. The thoracic location is infrequent, with isolated reports to date. We present the case of a 6-year-old male patient with a right thoracic tumor of months of evolution that was surgically removed by right anterolateral thoracotomy and in which the diagnosis of classic well-differentiated lipoblastoma was histologically confirmed. The patient evolved favorably and was discharged. He is currently under follow-up and without recurrence 1 year after surgery. This is, to our knowledge, the first thoracic lipoblastoma reported in an African pediatric patient. The importance of knowing the clinical, semiological, and intraoperative characteristics of this tumor becomes even more important, as in our case, in the context of international cooperation, where in many cases, there is no possibility of performing pre-operative imaging studies or subsequent genetic studies.