Glomus Tumor of Thumb Occurring at Unusual Location

Abstract

Glomus tumour are painful swelling arising from glomus bodies. They are very rare in occurrence. Most of the time the presenting symptoms is  severely painful fi ngertip without palpable swelling. Their most common location is the subungual region of digits. We report the rare case of a glomus tumour located in an uncommon location, i.e., at the tip of right thumb medial aspect near to tendon attachment. The peculiarity of this lesion is that this lesion on magnetic resonance imaging was found to arise from the insertion of flexure pollicis longus tendon and was reported as synovial swelling arising from tendon sheath. Clinical fi ndings were consistent with glomus tumour. Excision biopsy confi rmed diagnosis of glomus tumour. Although rare, glomus tumour
should be considered as differential diagnosis for fingertip pain and excision of lesion gives complete pain relief.

Key words: Glomus body, glomus tumour, painful swelling