Unusual etiology of rotator cuff pain: the intramuscular lipoma

Abstract

A 49-year-old woman reported a gradual pain of the shoulder for 1 year. One week, before her consultation, she fell on her shoulder and the pain became intense, the reason for which, she consulted our orthopedic department. On admission, the clinical examination found a rotator cuff syndrome (tests of the infraspinatus and supraspinatus tendons were positives). The neurovascular exam was normal. The radiograph of the shoulder was normal and so an oral's analgesics were prescribed with splint elbow to the body. For the first days, she did well, but the pain persisted which obliged her, three weeks later, to revisit the orthopedic department and so a magnetic resonance imaging was performed, which revealed a 7cm benign intra-osseous lipoma in the infraspinatus fossa. A few days later, the patient underwent surgery to remove the lesion and the pathological examination confirmed the hypothesis of an intramuscular lipoma. At the last follow up, the patient did well with no recurrent pain with full recovery of the shoulder mobility.

Keywords

• intramuscular lipoma
• impingement syndrome
• rotator cuff