Background: Knowledge about diagnostics and treatment of chronic Morel-Lavallée lesions is sparse.
Material and method: The patient presented is a 65-year-old woman who develops a post-traumatic chronic Morel-Lavallée lesion. The paper describes the course of her treatment including dos and don’ts with reference to literature from a systematic PubMed search.
Results and interpretation: The Morel-Lavallée lesion is often missed in the trauma setting during both primary, secondary and tertiary examination, resulting in a chronic lesion. Knowledge of the lesion minimises this risk. The gold standard for diagnosis is magnetic resonance imaging, but ultrasonography may also be used in the acute setting. The chronic lesion can be successfully treated with doxycycline-induced obliteration of the cavity followed by compression treatment for a short period.