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Rare disease
Case report
Traumatic costovertebral joint dislocation
  1. Anna H M Mennen,
  2. Kristian J de Ruiter and
  3. Daphne van Embden
  1. Trauma Surgery, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Anna H M Mennen; a.h.mennen{at}amsterdamumc.nl

Abstract

Rib fractures due to blunt trauma are a common chest injury seen at the emergency department; however, injuries to the costovertebral joints are very rare. We present a case of a 24-year-old man who was admitted after a high-speed car collision and was assessed in a level 1 trauma centre in Amsterdam. He had multiple injuries, including dislocation of the costovertebral joint of ribs 7–10. After performing a literature search we concluded that patients with traumatic costovertebral joint dislocations have a high incidence of vertebral fractures, neurological deficits and additional fractures. We believe that isolated dislocation of one or multiple costovertebral joint(s) can safely be treated conservatively. Close monitoring of the patients is advisable as these injuries are caused by high impact and are associated with other injuries.

  • orthopaedic and trauma surgery
  • orthopaedics
  • trauma
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2020-234931

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors AHMM: collecting data, conducted the literature search, wrote the articleK. KJdR: writing and revising the article DvE: clinical doctor of patient, helped with detailed description of case, revising the article.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.