A Case of a Child with a Lipoma of the Middle Ear and a Concomitant Chondroma of the External Auditory Canal

The case of a 2-year-old boy with a right middle ear lipoma and a concomitant chondroma of the left external auditory canal is presented. The patient’s preoperative diagnosis was cholesteatomas of the right middle ear and left external ear canal. A right-sided epitympanotomy was performed. A lump of fatty tissue in the right anterior middle ear cleft that obstructed the Eustachian tube orifice was found. The white mass in the left external auditory canal, which easily separated from the tympanosquamous fissure of the temporal bone, was excised with a Rosen needle. Histopathologic examination revealed a lipoma of the right middle ear and a chondroma of the external ear canal. No cases of concomitant lipoma and chondroma have been previously reported. In the present case, the middle ear lipoma could be classified as a congenital anomaly because of its association with a contralateral side chondroma, which would be a choristoma.