Cho HM, Heo H, Jung MC. Traumatic isolated bilateral gluteus minimus injuries misdiagnosed as lumbar radiculopathy: A case report. World J Clin Cases 2024; 12(34): 6715-6720 [PMID: 39650819 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v12.i34.6715]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hong-Man Cho, MD, MSc, PhD, Chief Doctor, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Gwangju Veterans Hospital, Cheomdanwolbong-ro 99, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju 62284, South Korea. chm1228@hanmail.net
Research Domain of This Article
Orthopedics
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. Dec 6, 2024; 12(34): 6715-6720 Published online Dec 6, 2024. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v12.i34.6715
Traumatic isolated bilateral gluteus minimus injuries misdiagnosed as lumbar radiculopathy: A case report
Hong-Man Cho, Haeryong Heo, Myung-Cheol Jung
Hong-Man Cho, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Gwangju Veterans Hospital, Gwangju 62284, South Korea
Haeryong Heo, Myung-Cheol Jung, Department of Orthopedics, Gwangju Veterans Hospital, Gwangju 62284, South Korea
Author contributions: Cho HM, Heo H, and Jung MC designed the research study; Cho HM, Heo H, and Jung MC performed the research; Cho HM wrote the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Approval was waived by the Institutional Review Board of Gwangju Veterans Hospital. Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this case report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016)
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hong-Man Cho, MD, MSc, PhD, Chief Doctor, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Gwangju Veterans Hospital, Cheomdanwolbong-ro 99, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju 62284, South Korea. chm1228@hanmail.net
Received: April 20, 2024 Revised: September 11, 2024 Accepted: September 25, 2024 Published online: December 6, 2024 Processing time: 174 Days and 23.7 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
The tear of the gluteus medius and minimus tendons can cause chronic buttock pain, especially in middle-aged individuals; these tears occur mostly in association with degenerative changes in the muscles and tendons. Chronic injuries are more common than acute injuries, and concurrent injuries to the gluteus medius and minimus tendons without chronic pain are rare, especially isolated injuries to both sides of the gluteus minimus; such a case has not yet been reported.
CASE SUMMARY
The authors present a case of bilateral acute traumatic injuries to the gluteus minimus during buttock strengthening exercises in a 75-year-old male patient. The patient completely returned to his pre-injury lifestyle after 8 weeks of injury, with no limitations, but the diagnosis was initially delayed due to misdiagnosis as lumbar radiculopathy, resulting in unnecessary socio-economic burden on the patient.
CONCLUSION
When treating patients who complain of hip pain, it is important to consider various causes to make a correct diagnosis.
Core Tip: Most cases of gluteus minimus damage occur together with damage to the medius due to trauma; when damaged alone, it is associated with degenerative changes. The authors report a case of a patient with bilateral gluteus minimus traumatic injury. In this extremely rare case, the patient was not diagnosed early and was misdiagnosed with lumbar neuropathy. As body-specific exercises become more popular, it is important to note that although rare, isolated muscle damage is possible. This case can inform future clinicians to aid in timely and correct diagnosis.
