Dercum's Disease: A Rare Disease of Painful Fatty Lumps

Alsadat Mosbeh; Rawan Almutairi; Abeer Albazzali

doi:10.7759/cureus.48615

Dercum's Disease: A Rare Disease of Painful Fatty Lumps

Cureus. 2023 Nov 10;15(11):e48615. doi: 10.7759/cureus.48615. eCollection 2023 Nov.

Authors

Alsadat Mosbeh^{1

2}, Rawan Almutairi³, Abeer Albazzali³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Dermatopathology, Farwaniya Hospital, Ministry of Health, Sabah Al Nasser, KWT.
² Department of Dermatology and Venereolgy, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, EGY.
³ Department of Dermatology, Farwaniya Hospital, Ministry of Health, Sabah Al Nasser, KWT.

Abstract

Dercum's disease is a rare and poorly understood condition characterized by painful subcutaneous adipose tissue growth that can occur anywhere beneath the skin surface. We present the case of a 27-year-old man with no significant medical history who had been experiencing painful subcutaneous nodules for two years. Skin biopsy revealed the proliferation of mature adipocytes that were surrounded by fibrous septa. There are currently no treatments approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for Dercum's disease, and the effectiveness of treatments that have been attempted is variable.

Keywords: adiposis dolorosa; dercum's disease; lipoma; painful lumps; painful subcutaneous masses.

Publication types

Case Reports