Chronic monoarthritis and previous history of cancer: think about synovial metastasis

Synovial metastases are rare events. Only 37 cases diagnosed by synovial fluid cytologic examination and/or by microscopic investigation of synovial biopsies have been previously reported in the literature. We report another case of shoulder chronic arthritis due to a recurrence of rectal adenocarcinoma and review previous published observations. Generally, this condition carries a poor prognosis with average patients survival of less than 5 months. The possibility of metastatic disease should be considered when an elderly person or patient with a history of previous malignancy presents with a chronic arthritis.