ABSTRACT
This chapter covers musculoskeletal tumours as causes of lumps and bumps and aims to highlight when a GP should be worried. Benign soft tissue tumours are 100 times more common than soft tissue sarcomas (STSs), but it is important to recognise a potentially malignant soft tissue tumour. A lipoma is a benign tumour of fat. Typically it is encapsulated and often subcutaneous, but it can occur either intramuscularly, submuscularly or even in bone. Atypical lipomatous tumours (ALTs) are a fatty tumour that are histologically different from straightforward benign lipomata. A ganglion is a fluid-filled swelling arising from the lining of the tendon or a joint. A haemangioma or arteriovenous malformation is an abnormal collection of blood vessels. A schwannoma is a benign neural tumour arising from a single fibre of a peripheral nerve, whereas a neurofibroma involves the nerve itself. Both can be multiple, neurofibromas often occurring within the disorder of neurofibromatosis and schwannomas as part of schwannomatosis.
