Doctors took a look at man's painful shoulder—they found the joint was missing

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一名45岁建筑工人因右肩严重肿胀疼痛就医，医生拍X光片查看病因，结果却发现惊人一幕：他的整个肩关节竟然“消失”了。通俗来说，肩关节就像球窝，上臂骨顶端的“球头”嵌在肩胛骨的“窝”里。而这名男子的球头和完整关节窝都没了，断掉的上臂骨像一根漂浮的木棍，在手臂里自由晃动。核磁共振还显示，固定关节的肌腱也大面积撕裂，三条主要肌腱完全断裂。这简直像身体内部发生了一场“爆破”，关节被彻底摧毁，只留下零碎残片。虽然这是罕见的极端病例，但也给普通人敲响警钟：肩膀疼痛不能硬扛，尤其从事体力劳动或运动人群，若出现渐进性剧痛、肿胀，务必及时就医，否则小损伤也可能发展成无法挽回的骨关节灾难，影响整个手臂的正常功能。

A 45-year-old construction worker went to the emergency department for his right shoulder, which was extremely swollen and becoming progressively more painful. Doctors took an X-ray to try to see what was causing the problem. But when the images came through, it was what they didn't see that explained the situation: His entire shoulder joint was gone, seemingly blasted apart into small, lingering pieces. The shoulder joint is a ball-and-socket joint, with the sphere-like head of the upper arm bone (humerus) sitting in the socket of the shoulder blade. According to a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine, the man's X-ray showed that he no longer had a ball at all or an intact socket. His upper arm bone was detached from the joint, and the sphere-like top of his upper arm bone (humeral head) was completely gone. The broken, headless humerus was instead left to float freely in the man's arm, unattached to his upper body. The man's shoulder, visibly swollen, and his X-ray showing destruction of the humeral head with a free-floating upper arm bone. Credit: New England Journal of Medicine, 2026 Magnetic resonance imaging, meanwhile, found that the man's rotator cuff—the group of muscles and tendons that holds the upper arm firmly in the socket—was also destroyed. Three of the four main tendons (supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and subscapularis tendons) had full-thickness tears.Read full article Comments