Strange benign chest lumps found in SoCal surfers…
Surfers have long braved shark bites, reef scrapes, and the dreaded “surfer’s ear.”
But now, getting older wave-riders could also be taking home a weird memento from years spent in the surf: unusual, fatty growths bulging from their chests.
Doctors have recognized the bizarre lumps, called “liposurfomas,” in longtime surfers, who seem to develop them after years of repeatedly grinding their torsos against onerous surfboards while paddling out. While the alarming plenty can appear like tumors, researchers say they seem to be benign — although they’ll grow bigger with continued browsing.
A 44-year-old male surfer is shown with distinguished bilateral subcutaneous tumors, in a research by the Department of Dermatology, University of California, Irvine. JAAD Case Reports
The peculiar condition has caught renewed consideration in Southern California after researchers at the University of California, Irvine studied seven surfers with the distinctive growths. Getty Images
Two large cellular chest wall plenty are shown on a 55-year-old male surfer in an image from a research by the Department of Dermatology, University of California, Irvine. JAAD Case Reports
The peculiar condition has caught renewed consideration in Southern California after researchers at the University of California, Irvine studied seven surfers with the distinctive growths. Dr. Jeffrey Klein, a dermatology professor at UC Irvine and one of the researchers behind the research, said the growths may be mistaken for cancer — probably sending in any other case healthy surfers down a nerve-racking path of testing and treatment.
“These lesions are rather common in surfers,” researchers wrote, noting that most surfers know anyone with the telltale gentle, symmetrical chest bumps.
The plenty are believed to outcome from “incessant low-intensity traumatic compression of subcutaneous tissue, squeezed between the costal margin and the hard deck of a surfboard while paddling in the prone position.”
The growths are different from the better-known “surfer’s knots,” researchers say, that are onerous, callus-like plenty usually found on knees, ft, and shins of longboarders. Both are reportedly benign tissue growths.
Surf icon Corky Carroll even went public about his bulging torso in a 2010 column, referring to himself as “the man with four breasts.”
The growths have a tendency to swell during peak surf seasons and shrink barely when surfers take prolonged time just on dry land. For surfers eager to ditch the additional set of pecs, therapies vary from including further padding to wetsuits to surgical elimination and liposuction.
However, docs warn that if riders keep hitting the surf, the lumps can come proper back.
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