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Chronic Sclerosing Osteomyelitis

- Discussion:
    - chronic sclerosing osteomyelitis (of Garre) has dense sclerotic appearance and often no associated lucency on radiographs;
    - lesion usually involves the entire circumference of the bone and is much more widespread than a stress fracture;
    - thinner linear sclerotic appearance of a stress fracture should be characteristic enough to distinguish the two lesions;
    - serial radiographs generally show little or no change within a short time in sclerosing osteomyelitis;
    - typical stress fracture, however, has a rapidly evolving course over several weeks;



- Radiographic Findings:
    - fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography:
         - FFPET is an accurate imaging technique which is more accurate than combination of a bone scan and a WBC scan for the dx of chronic infection of the spine;
         - in the report by de Winter F, et al, the authors evaluated the value of fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography in the diagnosis of osteomyelitis;
               - 60 patients with a suspected chronic musculoskeletal infection involving the central skeleton (33 patients) or the peripheral skeleton (27 patients) were studied;
               - 35 patients had had surgery within the previous two years;
               - 25 patients had infection and thirty-five did not - all 25 infections were correctly identified by both readers;
               - 4 false-positive findings; in two of these cases, surgery had been performed less than 6 months prior to the study;
               - sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 100%, 88%, and 93% for the whole group;
               - 100%, 90%, and 94% for the subgroup of patients with a suspected infection of the central skeleton; and 100%, 86%, and 93% for the subgroup of patients with a suspected infection of the peripheral skeleton;
         - ref: Fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-position emission tomography: a highly accurate imaging modality for the diagnosis of chronic musculoskeletal infections.



- Debridement of Sequestra

- Antibiotics Cement Beads



Images in clinical medicine. Bone within bone--chronic osteomyelitis.