Benign symmetric lipomatosis*


Madelung's disease. Same as pictures 1 & 2. Poorly defined, multiple subcutaneous fat swellings. The portrait is of an 80 year old Croatian alcoholic who stopped drinking 10 years before the picture was taken. The fatty swellings stopped enlarging when he ceased drinking. He had been used as an examination patient for foreign medical graduates on at least three occasions. The clinical diagnosis was bilateral lymphangiomas. The patient's arms, axillae and thighs, where there were multiple fatty masses, had not been examined by the examiners or the successful candidates.