An unusual shoulder injury

Traumatic pseudoaneurysm of the axillary artery is a rare sequel of shoulder injury. We report here a unique phenomenon of delayed presentation axillary pseudoaneurysm some time after an initial blunt injury, with no evidence of gross bony injury. The gentleman presented again some weeks later after a failure of rehabilitation and progressive neurological deficit in the affected arm. Ultimate management of the lesion was by endovascular insertion of a covered stent, and decompression of the axilla. Unfortunately the lack of subsequent neurological recovery parallels some of the findings in the literature, from cases where relief of the brachial plexus was not undertaken soon enough.