Facelift- and circum-occipital incision placement for fat extirpation of the neck in Madelung's disease - a two-case report.

Benign symmetric lipomatosis (Madelung's disease) is a rare disorder of fat metabolism that is characterized by progressive symmetrical formation of unencapsulated and painless excess fat masses around the neck and trunk that result in cosmetic disfiguration and functional impairment. Since the disorder is incompletely understood and causal therapy is unavailable, surgical removal of fatty masses is the mainstay of treatment. In this paper the authors describe their use of the classical facelift incision placement as well as a horizontal circum-occipital incision to approach and excise excess fat of the anterior and posterior neck in two patients.