Massive Humeral Osteolysis: A Rare Complication of Osteomyelitis

• Autor(a) principal: Lourenço, Ana Luísa; Radiology department. Hospital Dona Estefânia, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Lisboa Central, Lisboa, Portugal
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Nascimento, Lúcia; Radiology department. Hospital Dona Estefânia, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Lisboa Central, Lisboa, Portugal, Alves, Pedro; Radiology department. Hospital Dona Estefânia, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Lisboa Central, Lisboa, Portugal, Costa, Maria José; Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department. Hospital Dona Estefânia, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Lisboa Central, Lisboa, Portugal
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25759/spmfr.388
• topic: Humerus; Osteolysis/diagnostic imaging; Osteomyelitis/complications; Osteólise/diagnóstico por imagem; Osteomielite/complicações; Úmero

Introduction: Osteomyelitis may lead to severe complications, such as bone necrosis, which can result in segmental bone defects. Nowadays, this is a very rare complication due to the proper antibiotic therapy and surgical management.Case Report: We describe the case of a six-year-old child referred to our institution with a massive humeral osteolysis due to a complication from a right arm pan-osteomyelitis, without previous surgical intervention. Physical examination revealed a deformable arm due to bone support absence. However, some movements of elbow flexion/extension and shoulder elevation were still preserved.Discussion: This paper describes a very rare case of an extensive bone segmental osteolysis due to osteomyelitis, which is interesting not only for its rarity and peculiar imaging and clinical presentation, but also for the fact that the child preserves some arm movements, using compensation/ recruitment mechanisms.