[Spinal stiffness. Differential imaging diagnosis with reference to acquired hyperostosis syndrome and spinal loading disease].

There are numerous diseases which can irreversibly stiffen the whole spine or parts of the axial skeleton. Due to didactic reasons one can distinguish 3 groups of such disorders: Paradigmatic diseases of the spine with an inherent proneness to stiffness. Rare diseases which involve a certain danger of stiffening the spine.

Dense bone around the sacroiliac joint: a radiological review of the differential diagnosis.

Solitary osteosclerotic bone lesions around the sacroiliac (SI) joints are described as seen on plain radiographs or conventional tomography, with the descriptive attributes ranging from round to ovoid over square and triangular to multiform. The etiology of the solitary osteosclerotic lesions around the SI joint can often be concluded from the radiographic appearance, sometimes complemented by the presentation on CT and/or scintigraphy.

[Osteoclastic finger arthrosis--a subtype of hand polyarthrosis].

Aim: Description of a subtype of arthrosis deformans of the hand which is characterised as osteoclastic arthrosis.

Patients And Methods: Retrospective analysis of radiographs of the hands of 150 women and 100 men with radiological findings of arthrosis deformans.

Results: 5% of women and 2% of men showed at least one digital joint with subchondral osteolysis of one or both articulating bones involving at least a third of the phalanx.

Acquired hyperostosis syndrome--AHYS--(sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis, pustulotic arthro-osteitis, SAPHO-syndrome): bone scintigraphy of the anterior chest wall.

The objective of this report is to provide a description of diagnostically significant scintigraphically recognizable sites and patterns of acquired hyperostosis syndrome (AHYS) on the anterior chest wall (ACW), which is involved in 82% of AHYS patients. In 49/90 of our own AHYS patients, planar bone scans of the ACW were performed with the gamma camera, applying an average of 650 MBq of 99mTc-phosphate complexes. In addition, 53 atraumatic patients with extrathoracic cancer were available for routine whole-body scintigraphy.