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Case Reports
. 2019 Apr 9;20(1):150.
doi: 10.1186/s12891-019-2532-1.

Humeral stress fracture in a female CrossFit athlete: a case report

Ivan R B Godoy  1 , Eduardo A Malavolta  2   3 , Jan Stefan Lundberg  4 , Jader J da Silva  4 , Abdalla Skaf  4
Affiliations
Case Reports

Humeral stress fracture in a female CrossFit athlete: a case report

Ivan R B Godoy et al. BMC Musculoskelet Disord. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Background: Humeral stress fractures are rare injuries usually related to sports practice and joint overload without a direct trauma. A proximal humeral stress fracture has never been reported in a CrossFit athlete.

Case presentation: We report a stress fracture in the humerus of a 22-year-old woman after intense CrossFit training. Patient's previous medical history included amenorrhea and reduced Vitamin D levels. The patient was treated conservatively and resumed CrossFit training after she was advised not to until follow up imaging.

Conclusions: We present the MRI features of the case and emphasize the difficulties in diagnosis due to multiple possible causes of shoulder pain in a CrossFit athlete and by negative findings on early radiographs. Hormonal variations, Vitamin D insufficiency and the patient's attitude towards exercise were important factors that contributed for the stress injury after weight-lifting in CrossFit.

Keywords: CrossFit; Shoulder; Stress fracture.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

A written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this case report and any accompanying images.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Coronal (a) and sagittal (b) T2-weighted fat-suppressed MR images and coronal (c) and sagittal (d) T1-weighted MR images of the right shoulder showing intense bone marrow edema of the proximal humerus, with a small incomplete transverse fracture line (open arrow)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Sagittal (a), coronal (b) and axial (c) T2-weighted fat-suppressed MR images of the right shoulder showing intense bone marrow edema of the humerus (open arrow), with edema of the subscapularis muscle (arrows)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Coronal (a) and sagittal (b) T2-weighted fat-suppressed MR images and coronal (c) and sagittal (d) T1-weighted MR images of the left shoulder showing intense bone marrow edema of the proximal humerus, without fracture lines or periosteal reaction (open arrow)
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Sagittal (a) and axial (b) T2-weighted fat-suppressed MR images showing mild edema of the subscapularis muscle (arrows)
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Coronal (a) and sagittal (b) T2-weighted fat-suppressed MR images and coronal (c) and sagittal (d) T1-weighted follow-up MR images of the right shoulder show complete resolution of bone marrow edema of the proximal humerus, with consolidation of the transverse fracture line (open arrow)
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Coronal (a) and axial (b) T2-weighted fat-suppressed follow-up MR images of the right shoulder showing complete resolution of the bone marrow edema of the humerus (open arrow) and of the subscapularis muscle edema (arrows)
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
Coronal (a) and sagittal (b) T2-weighted fat-suppressed follow-up MR images and coronal (c) and sagittal (d) T1-weighted MR images of the left shoulder showing resolution of the bone marrow edema of the proximal humerus (open arrow)
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Sagittal (a) and axial (b) T2-weighted fat-suppressed follow-up MR images showing resolution of the subscapularis muscle edema (arrows)
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