Functioning parathyroid lipoadenoma. Report of a case diagnosed by intraoperative touch preparations.

Lipoadenoma of the parathyroid gland is an unusual cause of primary hyperparathyroidism. Inasmuch as they may grossly resemble lipoma more than parathyroid adenoma, these tumors may be missed by surgeons and surgical pathologists alike. In this case, the diagnosis was made during surgery utilizing touch preparations because frozen sections were technically difficult to perform due to the fat content of the tumor. Examination of multiple sections disclosed a neoplastic proliferation of parathyroid cells, thus supporting the premise that this entity represented an adenoma rather than a hamartoma.