Lipomas are the most frequent benign tumours. Usually they are removed for cosmetic reasons only. For the treatment of giant lipomas, liposuction was proposed to reduce the size of the skin incision. The reliability of this technique was compared to surgical resection in a series of 30 patients presenting with a giant lipoma. One year follow-up of these patients showed a high percentage of recurrences after liposuction but only one after excision.