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Clinical presentation:
The usual plain film of a middle aged adult with back pain. Effectively an incidental finding.

There is a coarsening of the bone texture with relative preservation of vertical trabecula in the body of the third lumbar vertebra. There is spondylotic change between L4 and L5 with disc narrowing and marginal osteophtyes. Vertebral alignment is preserved.

This condition is not associated with compression fractures.

[haemangiomas] [spondylosis]

[Differential]

cases that might resemble this pathology

[View large image] Paget's disease (case report) [View large image] Myelofibrosis (case report)
[View large image] Radiotherapy bone necrosis (case report) [View large image] Metastasis. (case report)
[View large image] Fluorosis. (case report) [View large image] Ankylosing spondylitis. (case report)
On a CT scan, osteoporosis may resemble haemangioma, but contrast enhancement and some soft-tissue extension outside the bone may distinuish. There is no example of Melorheostosis, Tuberous sclerosis in bone or pyknodyostosis in this database.
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[London South Bank U.]

IDM June 2007