Lipoma treatments - What are my options?

Since lipomas are exceedingly rarely cancer, there is no reason that lipomas have to be removed from a medical standpoint, as long as you are sure that it is a lipoma. 

To be sure that it is a lipoma, one needs to have had a biopsy and look at it pathologically.  If the lipoma is unsightly, and you wish to have it removed, there are two options for removal in my practice. 

1. Direct excision - an incision is made right over the mass, and then the lipoma is dissected away from the surrounding tissue, and sewn up. 
2. Liposuction - done by infusing tumescent fluid into the lipoma, which makes it quite large, and differentiates it from the surrounding fat.  You can then use a canula to remove the majority of the fatty tumor.  Frequently after most of the fat has been removed, you can then grab the capsule (covering of the lipoma) and pull out the remainder of the lesion. 

Liposuction is obviously more time consuming and difficult than direct excision, but there is less scar for the patient.  Technically, there are fat cells left behind, and so the lipoma could grow again.  This has not been the case in my practice generally. 

The obvious advantage to doing the liposuction technique is that there is less incision, so the resulting scar is less, and there is generally less numbness associated with the smaller scar. 

With both ways of dealing with lipoma removal, the actual fat that is removed is sent to the pathologist for an evaluation.