What are those little bumps I feel when I take a shower? Can they turn into cancer?

Many people will accidentally feel some small bumps on their bodies when taking a shower. They are often hidden under the skin, have a large range of motion, are painless and itchy, and will slowly grow over time. Many people dare not go to the hospital to see a doctor, and search the Internet by themselves, but the results are often words like tumors. What are these bumps? They are common soft tissue tumors - lipomas.

Lipoma can be said to be the most common benign tumor in our body. Since I started working, the first surgery I performed personally was a lipoma resection.

Maybe you don’t know what lipoma is, but you know what fat is. In fact, lipoma is formed by the aggregation of mature fat cells. In other words, lipoma may grow wherever there is fat, so the fat tissue removed during surgery is generally yellow.

Lipomas can occur anywhere on the body, most commonly on the shoulders, back, neck, chest and abdomen, and secondarily on the limbs. We can usually feel these superficial lipomas, but if they grow deeper, such as in the intermuscular septum or retroperitoneum, they are called deep lipomas and are often not palpable.

What is the cause of lipoma? As a patient with multiple lipomas, I want to know the exact cause more than anyone else. Although lipomas are very common, the cause has not been fully clarified until now.

The mainstream view is that lipoma is related to daily living habits, congenital development and heredity, especially family history. About 1/3 of patients have a genetic tendency, which is also reflected in me.

My father also has a physique with multiple lipomas, and there are about a dozen palpable lipomas on his body, and his gastrointestinal endoscopy shows multiple polyps. I have successfully inherited his physique with lipomas, and currently I roughly estimate that there are more than 40 polyps, of course, this is only the palpable part, and the deeper lipomas are unknown.

Some people may think that more than 40 lipomas are already a lot. I once met a patient whose arms were covered with lipomas. He was most afraid of getting sick because he could not find a place to get an injection when he was sick.

Will lipomas become malignant? How should they be treated? Whether or not lipomas will become malignant is definitely the most concerning issue for all lipoma patients. After all, lipomas are very common, accounting for more than 80% of soft tissue tumors.

In fact, although most lipomas are benign, they can indeed become malignant. When a lipoma becomes malignant, it becomes a liposarcoma. However, the incidence of this malignancy is too low, so when people mention lipoma, their first impression is that it is a benign tumor.

However, even benign tumors can be treated with surgery if the following conditions occur:

● Rapid growth in a short period of time

Generally speaking, lipomas grow slowly. When a tumor grows rapidly in a short period of time, you should be alert to the excessive division of tumor cells. At this time, it is recommended to go to the hospital for surgery to confirm the diagnosis.

● The tumor is too large to affect work and life

Some lipomas may compress nerves and cause pain as they grow in size. In this case, surgical removal is necessary to relieve the symptoms.

●Lipomas in certain special locations

For example, if the lipoma grows in an important part and affects the function of the organ, surgical removal is recommended.