Monday, February 21, 2011

Qu'est-ce Que C'est?

A 51-year-old female asks me to remove an intriguing growth from her right inner thigh.  She calls it a skin tag.   I call it a violaceous 1.5 cm x 0.8 cm pedunculated mass that--I kid you not!--is shaped like a kidney.  There's no other way to describe what looks like a miniature kidney sprouting from her thigh...has she discovered the secret to growing diminutive replicas of vital organs?  I want to take it home and transplant it into a Barbie doll with end stage renal disease.  Sadly, pathology confirms it's just a humble capillary hemangioma.

A very young 24-year-old mother of four brings her 7-year-old son to clinic with great urgency.  "There are these lumps!" she tells me, getting very upset, "On his stomach!".  I am half expecting to see something crazy like dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, but when she lifts up her son's shirt to reveal his abdomen, I see...  cellulite.

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