Mondor's disease - a rare cause of chest pain: a case report

Chest 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.

Here 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.

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.