Giant intrapericardial lipoma: clinical and forensic implications

Introduction. Even though lipomas are the most common benign tumors, they are rarely found in the pericardial cavi-ty. Although histopathologically benign, they can cause life -threatening complications by rapid growth and may there-fore be clinically considered malignant. Case report. We present an 80-year-old female who was injured during a syncopal episode when falling from a standing height and suffered bodily injuries for which she was hospitalized. In the further course of her short-term hospital treatment, death occurred, and the cause of death was marked as "un-known". At the autopsy, a dilated and tense pericardium fill-ing up a large part of the chest cavity was noted. A well -encapsulated soft tissue mass, 20 X 18 X 3 cm in size, weighing 820 g, was visualized in the pericardial cavity. His-topathological examination revealed that the mass was a li-poma and showed acute myocardial necrosis; therefore, it was assumed that the cause of death was probably due to the compression of lipoma on coronary arteries. Conclu-sion. Even though intrapericardial lipomas are benign tu-mors, they can cause life-threatening complications and sudden cardiac death. There are numerous diagnostic meth-ods capable of detecting intrapericardial lipomas, and with timely treatment, the patient can be cured.