Lung Cancer and Shoulder Pain

¹ Enugu, Nigeria

Lung cancer occasionally presents with pain in the shoulder. As this manifestation is still not widely appreciated, cases of this nature have been known to masquerade for long under such diagnostic labels as neuritis, neuraltia, fibrositis and rheumatism. Hitherto, almost exclusive attention has been paid to apical pulmonary tumors which involve the suprajacent brachial plexus and cause pain in the ipsilateral shoulder. In order to present a broader concept, the pathologic features of five cases of primary carcinoma of the lung have been used to show that when this tumor gives rise to shoulder pain, the site of origin may be discovered either in the ipsilateral pulmonary apex or in the other parts of the ipsilateral or contralateral lung.