Humeral bone fragility in patients with shoulder prosthesis: a case of humeral periprosthetic refracture

In recent decades there has been an increase in upper limb prosthetic surgery, primarily for the shoulder, for osteoarthritis disease and for traumatic pathology. It is occurring in parallel an increase in periprosthetic fractures of the humerus, although with less impact than other anatomical districts such as the hip.We report a case of humeral periprosthetic refracture in a 66-years-old female patient.The humerus bone quality is worse than in other districts in patient of the same age.The fragility humerus fracture are increasing, affecting relatively younger individuals than those with femoral neck fractures and represent an independent risk factor for the occurrence of subsequent fractures.Actually humeral BMD is underestimated by traditional densitometric evaluation techniques.