Abstract
BackgroundChest pain is one of the common presenting symptoms encountered in an emergency department. Prompt history taking and careful clinical examination do help to differentiate cardiac chest pain from other causes. Mondor’s disease is a rare cause of chest pain which is often underdiagnosed due to lack of awareness. Mondor’s disease is a condition characterized by thrombophlebitis of the superficial veins of breast and anterior chest wall. The diagnosis is often made clinically.Case presentationHere we report a case of a 37-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil woman who presented with chest pain and was clinically diagnosed as having Mondor’s disease after a physical examination, which was confirmed with demonstration of thrombophlebitis by ultrasound scan imaging. Although it is a self-limiting condition, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are used in the treatment to hasten recovery in addition to giving reassurance.ConclusionsMondor’s disease is not considered a differential diagnosis for chest pain due to lack of awareness of this medical condition. Creating awareness of this condition via this case would help to cut down unnecessary investigations and valuable time spent in emergency departments, and it helps to identify a serious underlying cause especially carcinoma of the breast at its early stage.
Highlights
Chest pain is one of the common presenting symptoms encountered in an emergency department
Mondor’s disease is not considered a differential diagnosis for chest pain due to lack of awareness of this medical condition. Creating awareness of this condition via this case would help to cut down unnecessary investigations and valuable time spent in emergency departments, and it helps to identify a serious underlying cause especially carcinoma of the breast at its early stage
Chest pain is a common presentation encountered in clinical practice
Summary
Even though Mondor’s disease is an uncommon cause of chest pain, it is not considered a differential diagnosis due to lack of awareness of this condition. At the same time it can be a rare manifestation of an underlying serious condition especially breast carcinoma. It is easy to diagnose at the bedside by performing a clinical examination. Creating awareness of this condition via this case would help to cut down costs and valuable time in emergency departments by avoiding unnecessary investigations. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Author details 1Department of Medicine, Teaching Hospital, Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Author details 1Department of Medicine, Teaching Hospital, Jaffna, Sri Lanka. 2Professorial Medical Unit, Teaching Hospital, Jaffna, Sri Lanka
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