Swollen ischiopubic synchondrosis: a dilemma for the radiologist.

Differences in size and shape of ischiopubic synchondrosis in childhood may present problems in diagnosis and differential diagnosis. Whereas asymptomatic swollen ischiopubic synchondrosis represents a normal ossification process, painful swelling is a symptom of underlying pathology. Five children are described with symptomatic ischiopubic synchondrosis swelling, four representing stress reaction and one with osteomyelitis.

Metachondromatosis.

Objectives: To draw attention to metachondromatosis, which may be misdiagnosed as multiple osteochondromatosis, and to point out several findings that have not been emphasized in previous reports.

Patients And Method: The authors reviewed the relevant clinical and detailed radiographic findings for five patients from different countries, who underwent imaging at various ages during childhood.

Results: Deformities resembling exostoses and punctate calcification were distinctive and represent previously unemphasized features of vertebral involvement in metachondromatosis.

Crohn's disease penetrating into the spinal canal.

An 11-year-old boy who had suffered from Crohn's disease of the large bowel for 4 years developed high fever, severe back pain and flexion-contracture of the right hip joint with inability to walk. After several weeks radicular irritation also became apparent. CT-scan demonstrated an abscess of the right psoas muscle that had also infiltrated the spinal canal, leading to a spinal extradural abscess extending from L2-S4.

Kidney dimensions in ultrasound compared to somatometric parameters in normal children.

In 196 children aged between 4 weeks and 16 2/12 years a sonographic investigation of kidneys was performed and put into relation to somatometric data including bodyweight (BW) bodylength (BL), length of the trunk and the upper and the lower limb, breadth of thorax and pelvic, head circumference, maximum cranial length and maximum cranial breadth. None of the children had signs of renal disorder. Morphometric data, as kidney length, width, depth, parenchymal areas in longitudinal and transverse sections and the prolate ellipsoid volume (PEV) were documented.