Prevalence and characteristics of benign cartilaginous tumours of the shoulder joint. An MRI-based study

Enchondromas (EC) of the shoulder joint are benign intraosseous cartilage neoplasms, with atypical cartilaginous tumours (ACT) representing their intermediate counterpart. They are usually found incidentally on clinical imaging performed for other reasons. Thus far the prevalence of ECs of the shoulder has been analysed in only one study reaching a figure of 2.1%.

The aim of the current study was to validate this number via retrospective analysis of a 45 times larger, uniform cohort consisting of 21.550 patients who had received an MRI of the shoulder at a single radiologic centre over a time span of 13.2 years.

Ninety-three of 21.550 patients presented with at least one cartilaginous tumour. Four patients showed two lesions at the same time resulting in a total number of 97 cartilage tumours (89 ECs [91.8%], 8 ACTs [8.2%]). Based on the 93 patients, the overall prevalence was 0.39% for ECs and 0.04% for ACTs. Mean size of the 97 ECs/ACTs was 2.3 ± 1.5 cm; most neoplasms were located in the proximal humerus (96.9%), in the metaphysis (60.8%) and peripherally (56.7%). Of all lesions, 94 tumours (96.9%) were located in the humerus and 3 (3.1%) in the scapula.

Frequency of EC/ACT of the shoulder joint appears to have been overestimated, with the current study revealing a prevalence of 0.43%.