Dercum Links

During the course of learning about Dercum's Disease, a lot of data and references were found on the internet, using a variety of search engines. This page points to the stuff I've found. Here you read about them! And maybe find them for yourselves ... (editorial comments are in blue)

If anyone finds any other links of interest, please send them to me

Major Dercum-related links

PubMed References: This is a list of all the Dercum, Adiposis Dolorosa articles and a few other applicable references (67 so far) I was able to find in the PubMed Data base and some other places
(The link below explains how to get there). An index/database is NOT in the works, no interest..

NORD entry on Dercum's: This link takes you to the National Organization for Rare Diseases (a private, non-profit, organization) site that discusses the disease and provides other information -- most of which is duplicated here. This is confirmation that Dercum's is a rare disease.

Dercum's Articles available on line: This link takes you to a page that describes articles that are available on this site.

Dercums_Disease Support Group: A community devoted to sharing information, providing resources and offering support to those who suffer from Dercum's Disease.


The Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) Site: This link takes you to the OMIM page that describes (poorly) Adiposis Dolorosa (Dercum Disease). If you know how, you can get to a great deal of reference material from the links here. If not, use the next link ===>

PubMed Query: This is the way I got the list of Pub Med References in the above page. This is the first page of a list of documents related to the JM Cantu article below. Some talk about Dercum or Adiposis Dolorosa, some have abstracts, some need Russian or Norwegian or Dutch translators, and some are totally unrelated (or so it seems). I've extracted the data in the PubMed References, above, to save you some effort ^.

Dorrit Hvam's Dercum's Disease Page (Danish): Dorrit put together a website in Danish. Use Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape 6.x (Netscape 4.77 doesn't work) Click on the "Union Jack" link to get her English version.

Swedish Dercums sjukdom (disease) page: This is Marie Hallsten's site, in Swedish. Use Microsoft Internet Explorer (Netscape 4.77 doesn't work) Click on the "Dercums disease" link to get her English summary page.

"Lipoma Excision," American Family Physician, March 1, 2002: 901-905.: And this article is on lipoma excision, by Gohar A. Salam, M.D., D.O., though I don't think the Dercum's lipomas are as easy to remove as the one cartooned ...

Search Engines

NCBI PubMed: This is THE search tool for searching MEDLINE, the NIH Medical Data base. I used it extensively to gather the references. It used to be called the "Internet Grateful Med".

Minor Dercum-related links

The content of the reference is provided, along with the link where you can find it.

Dr. Ed Friedlander's Chapter on Bones & Soft Tissue

This link takes you to an online medical/pathology text book. This section is on bones and soft tissue, and it is quite educational. However, the only comments he makes about Dercum's are:

"*In adiposis dolorosa ("Dercum's disease"), presumably an anti-oncogene deletion syndrome, the patient has hundreds of lipomas which may hurt.

William Osler called this one of the three worst diseases of his time (with subluxation of the sacroiliac joint and milk leg). Today we're discovering that liposuction is an effective treatment.

At least in adiposis dolorosa (and we may conjecture, in other lipomas), the fat isn't burned very well for energy (Clin. Sci. 81: 793, 1991)."

Based on some research we've done, and people we've spoken to, liposuction might not be an effective treatment for everyone, even though it is touted here and elsewhere. Ask Maureen about her research..., or read the Yahoo! Group on Dercum's Disease

I do not fully understand what an "anti-oncogene deletion syndrome" is.

Dr. Ed Friedlander's Chapter on CANCER: CAUSES AND EFFECTS (discussing tumors)

This is link to another one of his chapters -- this time he mentions adiposis dolorosa, but in a different vein. Even though the lipomas (tumors) are benign, they can cause problems just by being, and he lists a number of examples:

"EFFECTS OF BENIGN TUMORS ON THE PATIENT

Some benign tumors cause serious problems because of their location (one unfortunate expression is "malignant by location"). These include:

pituitary adenomas crushing the normal pituitary and optic nerves
craniopharyngiomas destroying the hypothalamus
meningiomas compressing the brain
colloid cysts blocking the flow of cerebrospinal fluid
pleomorphic adenoma of the salivary gland encasing the facial nerve

Other benign tumors cause serious problems by other means. These include:

Too many tumors (innumerable painful lipomas in "adiposis dolorosa"; innumerable nerve tumors in Von Recklinghausen's; innumerable hamartomas in tuberous sclerosis, etc.)
Hormone production (thyroid adenomas, pituitary adenomas, adrenal adenomas, insulinomas, vipomas, glucagonomas, reninomas, others)
GI problems (bleeding, obstruction, telescoping, or potassium wasting)
Large size (100 pound ovarian mucinous cystadenomas, etc.)
Torsion and infarction (ovarian tumors)"

Your Family Health History (This link has vanished, again. The pertinent information is quoted below.): This is an article about creating a family health history, containing a specific reference to Dercum's, specifically

"nodules and lumps over the body as fatty tumors may be Dercum's disease which carries with it an increased risk of heart disease. See if there is an autosomal recessive pattern to it in the family tree."
This article talks about a recessive inheritance possibility. Other articles and papers talk about it being autosomal dominant. Research may even be going on about it ;-)
link had been http://www.jkfa.com/alpub/genetics.htm

So far people have been here.

Return to
Dercum's Disease Home Page

Last modified 17 April 2010

Comments about web page format
should be sent to Don

The links provided above are subject to periodic checking of addresses and content. Listing does not imply endorsement, and the webmaster is not responsible for the content of the pages. Furthermore, please don't forget that the information provided on this site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient and his or her physician.