Case 11 - 38 year old female with chronic knee pain
38 year old female with chronic, worsening right knee pain.
- Like the last case, this case stresses the importance of routinely inspecting Hoffa's fat pad and the suprapatellar fat pad. There's an abnormal mass centered in the suprapatellar bursa.
- Portions of the mass appear frond-like with papillary projections extending into a small joint effusion.
- There are subtle areas of erosion along the superior patellar pole.
- There's associated synovitis, seen as inflammation and high T2 signal of the synovium adjacent to the mass, which makes the signal characteristics of the mass difficult to asses; however, it's important to note that portions of the mass appear T1 hyperintense with suppression of signal on fat saturated sequences.
- Overall this appearance is suggestive of lipoma arborescens, although an inflammatory synovitis or synovial chondromatosis may also have this appearance. This patient went onto surgery with pathology yielding lipoma arborescens, a reactive fatty infiltration of the synovium due to chronic synovitis.
Accession: CL0087
Study description: MR JOINT LOWER KNEE-RT
Case discussion: