Rare and Bizarre Tietze’s Syndrome Causes

Tietze’s syndrome is a rare disease by itself. However, there are a few cases of really unusual cases of Tietze’s syndrome that caught my attention when I was researching into my disorder.

Breast Implants Can Cause Tietze’s Syndrome

One breast cancer survivor who had reconstructive surgery (with large breast implants) ended up suffering from Tietze’s syndrome due to the large implants rubbing against her ribs. The journal Clinical Nuclear Medicine article about this case can be found here.

Skin Cancer can Mimic Tietze’s Syndrome

One unfortunate patient, diagnosed with Tietze’s syndrome, found out that although his symptoms were identical to Tietze’s syndrome, further diagnostics revealed he actually had skin cancer which had invaded his inner chest. You can find the research article here.

Malignant Tumor Causes Tietze’s Syndrome

There’s at least one person out there who is glad he didn’t accept a diagnosis of Tietze’s syndrome. The patient described in this paper had typical symptoms of Tietze’s syndrome–pain in one left costal cartilage. After a biopsy, it was revealed he had Pleomorphic T-cell lymphoma: cancer. The paper mentions that while an MRI or CT scan could have caught the tumor, X-rays could not.

Can E-Coli Cause Tietze’s Syndrome?

According to this article that appeared in the Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases, a bout of e-coli in a diabetic woman led to a severe case of costochondritis. Although different, Tietze’s syndrome is closely related to costochondritis, so it isn’t so far fetched to think that E-Coli could occasionally cause the disease.

These cases are so rare, they only appeared once in the medical journals. If you are looking for more common causes of Tietzes syndrome, check out this article.

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