Whenever I’m given the chance to tell people what I do, I invariably get to the part where I list the procedures done at QuikSurg. Most, of course, are easily understood… I remove skin tags, warts, toenails. I repair cuts and ear lobes. I excise skin cancers, moles, epidermal cysts, and lipomas. Most everyone understands everything on that list until I come to the end… “what is a lipoma?”
The simplest definition is a “fatty tumor” (lipid=fat, oma=tumor) but it’s important to quickly add, “It’s a tumor but it’s not a cancer. Cancer grows and spreads to other parts of the body, a lipoma grows but rarely ever spreads”. So they are fat lumps under the skin but separate from the surrounding fat and typically not dangerous. It’s been my experience that the 2 most common lumps under the skin are cysts and lipomas. Most of the time, they “feel” differently to the clinician but there are times when you don’t know which is which until you open the skin.