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Lipoblastomas are rare, benign tumors of mesenchymal origin that contain adipose tissue. They usually develop in the soft tissues of an extremity in infants, children, and young adolescents. We report the case of a 22-month old girl referred to our staff for swelling in the supraclavicular fossa, which was observed when the child cried. The ulstrasonographic examination revealed a mass in the anterosuperior portion of the mediastinum that extended into the right supraclacular fossa. The lesion was weakly hyperechoic with clear-cut margins and did not appear to invade surrounding tissues. On CT, it appeared inhomogeneously hypodense with denitometric characteristics of adipose tissue. On MRI, it was hyperintense on both T1- and T2-weighted sequences and reduced signal intensity in FAT SAT sequences. In light of the imaging features and predominant adipose tissue component, the mass was diagnosed as a mediastinal lipoblastoma, and this diagnosis was confirmed by surgical histology.

A total of 39 patients with a mean age of 64 years (41 to 88) who had had anterior shoulder dislocation were followed-up an average of 2 years after trauma in order to evaluate the conditions of the rotator cuff. All of the patients were evaluated clinically, radiographically, and sonographically. Clinical evaluation revealed significant differences between the dislocated shoulders and the contralateral ones: the mean Constant score was 67 in the group with dislocated shoulders and 87 in the contralateral group. Ultrasound revealed partial injury of the cuff in 31% of cases and complete injury in 28%. Mean score was 81.4 in the group with a normal ultrasound, 67.1 in that with partial injury of the cuff, and 46.5 in that with complete injury of one or more tendons. These data confirm the high frequency of partial or complete injuries of the rotator cuff in patients aged over 40 years that have undergone anterior shoulder dislocation. Ultrasound confirms it is an excellent diagnostic method in the pathology of the rotator cuff, demonstrating good correlation with the clinical evaluation.