Construction worker loses shoulder joint to rare Milwaukee Syndrome

A 45‑year‑old construction worker went to the emergency department with a severely swollen and increasingly painful right shoulder. X‑ray imaging revealed that the entire shoulder joint was missing: the humeral head had vanished and the socket of the shoulder blade was destroyed, leaving the upper arm bone floating freely. MRI showed complete destruction of the rotator cuff, with full‑thickness tears of the supraspinatus, infraspinatus and subscapularis tendons. Doctors diagnosed the case as Milwaukee Shoulder Syndrome, a rare, rapidly destructive arthropathy first described in 1981 from cases in Wisconsin. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2026.