Evidence Hub

A Case Report of Craniofacial Intraosseous Xanthoma in a Patient Seeking Facial Feminization Surgery

Nghiem H. Nguyen, James C. Lee, Yuan Liu

Annals of Plastic Surgery, 2024

2 citations

Abstract

Background Fibrous dysplasia (FD) is a benign developmental disorder of the bone that causes normal skeletal tissue to be replaced by excess fibrous tissue and poorly differentiated osteoblasts. Intraosseous xanthomas are benign intraosseous tumor growths characterized microscopically by the presence of lipid-laden foamy histiocytes, often with cortical expansion or disruption. Although FD commonly occurs in craniofacial bones, primary intraosseous xanthomas of the skull or facial skeleton are extremely rare. Although 2 distinct conditions, each may be difficult to differentiate on CT imaging when occurring in the facial skeleton. Methods We report a case of an incidental finding on craniofacial CT of a frontal bone lesion originally thought to be FD. The finding was in a 55-year-old transgender woman who was assigned male at birth before receiving multiprocedural facial feminization surgery. Results The clinical features, radiological findings, and treatment are discussed. Postoperatively, the patient had no sequelae secondary to facial feminization surgery or to the orbital lesion biopsy procedure. Bone graft appeared stable on CT imaging, although FD did not appear to resolve completely. Conclusions Diagnosis of such lesions is challenging and may require both radiographic and histopathologic assessment. As in the case of this patient, intraosseous xanthomas may also be misdiagnosed as other benign lesions such as FD. In most known cases, surgical intervention leads to…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a case report, done in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free