A case of myofascial pain syndrome of the iliopsoas muscle undiagnosed for 3 years with chronic abdominal pain

Abdominal pain is one of the most common symptoms we encounter in primary care clinics, and the patients being hospitalized for abdominal pain account for 5-6% of all the inpatients. Careful history taking and physical exams are always necessary for the diagnosis of patients having abdominal pain, because their problems may be transient and insignificant but also can be severe. For the elderly patients, common causes of abdominal pain are unspecific abdominal pain, functional disease, constipation, kidney stone, urinary tract infection, inflammatory bowel disease, biliary tract disease, acute appendicitis, diverticulitis, abdominal aortic aneurysm, peptic ulcer, intestinal obstruction, mesenteric ischemia, malignant tumor, gastroenteritis, etc. and myofacscial pain can also be the cause. We treated an elderly female patient who had suffered severe abdominal pain due to myofascial pain syndrome of the iliopsoas muscle undiagnosed for over 3 years. Therefore we report this case with review of several literatures.