Southern California surfers are being diagnosed with a bizarre ‘tumor’ condition

Surfers have long braved shark bites, reef scrapes, and the dreaded “surfer’s ear.”

But now, aging wave-riders may be taking home a bizarre souvenir from years spent in the surf: strange, fatty growths bulging from their chests.

Doctors have identified the unusual lumps, called “liposurfomas,” in longtime surfers, who appear to develop them after years of repeatedly grinding their torsos against hard surfboards while paddling out. While the alarming masses can look like tumors, researchers say they appear to be benign — although they can grow larger with continued surfing.

The peculiar condition has caught renewed attention 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 study, said the growths can be mistaken for cancer — potentially sending otherwise 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 somebody with the telltale soft, symmetrical chest bumps.

The masses are believed to result 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, which are hard, callus-like masses typically found on knees, feet, 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 tend to swell during peak surf seasons and shrink slightly when surfers take extended time just on dry land. For surfers keen to ditch the extra set of pecs, treatments range from adding extra padding to wetsuits to surgical removal and liposuction.

However, doctors warn that if riders keep hitting the surf, the lumps can come right back.

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