Glomus tumor, an unusual location at the 5th digit’s pulp. Case report and review of the literature.

Glomus apparatus is a shunt mechanism responsible for controlling blood pressure and
temperature.Glomus tumor is a benign neoplasm usually located at the subungual region of the
digits .Several other regions of glomus tumor have been descripted.

A pubmed search was performed under Glomus tumor and we had 4489 results
whether glomus tumor hand resulted 531 papers.
A search was performed under glomus tumor digit  66 papers were
found. Under glomus tumor finger pulp 25 papers were yielded and 19 papers appeared
when excluding other language than English.
A 43 years old male presented to our patient clinic seeking for advice concerning a pain
that he had for over eight years at the pulp of the 5 th finger.
The patient noticed that the pain could be initiated when specific spot of the pulp was
pressed with the tip of a pencil and while consuming spirits specially raki or vodka.
An MRI was performed the previous year but no findings were noticeable.
A surgical exploration was performed with dire incision on the volar site of the 5 th digit
pulp.A spherical mass of 2mm*2mm was identified between the pulp and volar side of the bone
attached to periosteum and excision of the mass was performed.
Biopsy resulted as a glomus tumor of the pulp.
The unusual location of the mass led us for further investigation through pubmed.
Questioning:

i) why MRI was not able to identify the mass

ii) the frequency of the tumor occurring in this location
iii) clinical signs to rise the suspicion of the physician.