A case report of Charcot arthropathy caused by syringomyelia and Chiari malformation complicated with scoliosis

BMC Research Notes

Kunzheng Wang¹  Zenghua Yang²  Yulu Wang²  Heming Liu² 

[1] Orthopedic Surgery of the 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Medical institute of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shannxi Province, China;No.3 Orthopedic Surgery of the 1st Affiliated Hospital of Baotou Medical College, Baotou, Inner Mongolia Province, China

关键词: Scoliosis;    Chiari malformation;    Syringomyelia;    Charcot arthritis;   

Others  :  1133067
DOI  :  10.1186/1756-0500-7-277

 received in 2013-03-20, accepted in 2014-04-16,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Although Charcot arthropathy, also known as neuropathic arthropathy, of which early diagnosis and treatment is extremely difficult, associated with other cause factor has been widely described, Charcot arthropathy caused by syringomyelia and Chiari malformation complicated with scoliosis has never been described in the literature.

Case presentation

A 44-year-old male was hospitalized for diagnosis and treatment due to complaining the progressively swelling and limitation of motion in his left shoulder joint for 1 year. The patient has no significant past medical history except for scoliosis 8 years prior to his presentation to our clinic; He denied any constitutional symptoms, trauma, or pain in the upper extremities at this time of presentation. Based on history, physical and auxiliary examination, following diagnoses were made: Charcot arthropathy of the left shoulder, syringomyelia, Chiari malformation and scoliosis.

Conclusion

Once Charcot arthritis was found, it was mostly in advanced stage and very difficult to treat. So we recommended that if patient suffering from scoliosis visited in clinic, further examination such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and regular follow-up should be carried out, and early-stage of this devastating disease caused by syringomyelia and Chiari malformation may be diagnosed easily.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Liu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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