Keywords
Shoulder; Pain; Red flags
Abstract
Shoulder pain is one of the most common orthopaedic complaints in clinical practise. Its high prevalence makes it difficult to distinguish between potentially harmful disorders and other more benign pathologies, so clinicians must pay attention to the well-known red flags. The authors present an atypical case of shoulder pain in which the adequate knowledge of red flags allowed the diagnosis of a systemic disease. Thirty-one-year-old female suffering with severe shoulder pain on physical examination and an axillary mass. Imaging studies suggested it to be a metastatic lesion. Further exams and biopsies were obtained, revealing a poorly-differentiated malignancy, positive for vimentin and cytokeratin, confirmed to be a breast malignancy. This clinical report alerts orthopaedists to the need of valuing red flags in order to adequately advise their patients.
Citation
Grazina R, Sousa H, Ramos R, Ventura M, Costa A and Lemos R. Shoulder Pain as the First Symptom of Advanced Breast Cancer. SM J Case Rep. 2017; 3(7): 1068.