Small Lipoma on Face Removal?

Lipomas are benign fatty tumors that occur under the skin and less commonly within the muscle. They are associated with mild discomfort and a lump underneath the skin. It is always best to talk to an expert plastic surgeon to determine whether the lipoma is possibly a cyst or a tumor or hernia. We would have to remove the lipoma to be sure that it is not something else and we usually do this by sending it to a pathologist for evaluation. If a lipoma is painful, then an exam is needed to make sure it is not compressing on a nerve or whether the diagnosis is different. Aftercare for a lipoma includes gentle compression and Plato’s Scar Serum twice daily on the wound.

Best,
Dr. Karamanoukian
Realself100 Surgeon

A lipoma is a fatty mass that is under the skin.  The three treatment options that you mentioned sound like treatments for a skin disorder, not a lipoma.  Lipomas generally need to be removed by making a small incision in the skin and cutting the lipoma out.  This can be done under local anesthesia in an office setting in many cases.  If this is indeed a lipoma then there is no emergency for removing it, however, the do have the potential to increase in size over time.

Piesotherapy is an excellent approach for treating most kinds of lipomas. In this procedure, following local anesthesia, a small punch (a cookie-cutter like instrument) is used to punch out a tiny hole in the center of the lipoma through which the fatty contents may be coaxed out. In most cases, the entire lipoma can be removed in this fashion, even if it is much larger than the tiny opening created by the punch--very much the way a good-sized infant may be delivered through the vagina. The wound \opening can then be stitched with only a very few, extremely fine stitches, which typically results in a tiny, often barely perceptible scar.

Alternatively, a trial of mesotherapy might be considered. A series of tiny injections of minute amounts of fat dissolving agents, such as desoxycholate (with our without concomitant injectable steroids and salmeterol)--spaced at approximately eight week intervals--may be tried and if successful in shrinking the lesion no surgery need be performed. I have practices both on the Upper East Side of NY and in Israel, and have had success with the latter approach in Israel where this form of lipolytic (fat dissolving) mesotherapy is approved and readily available.