Clinical, imaging characteristics of benign and aggressive spinal osteoblastoma

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical and imaging manifestations of benign and aggressive spinal osteoblastoma. Methods Seventeen patients with benign osteoblastoma (BO) and 18 patients with aggressive osteoblastoma(AO) from May 2004 to November 2015 diagnosed by orthopedic doctor and pathologist were analyzed retrospectively. Thirty four patients (17 BO, 17 AO) underwent CT plain scanning, 26 patients underwent MRI. The follow-up time was 6 to 96 months, the postoperative recurrence rate was calculated. The continuous variables including the age, the duration of symptoms and the size of tumor were compared between AO and BO with the 2-tailed Student t test or Mann-Whitney U test. The categorical variables were compared between AO and BO with χ2 test.A P value<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results The age was significantly different between AO and BO [(29.82±14.69) Y vs (19.76±10.33)Y, P 0.05).The recurrence rate of AO (37.50%) was significantly different from that of BO (6.67%, P=0.04). Conclusion The clinical features including the age, duration of symptoms, neurological deficit contributed to differentiating BO from AO. The size of AO was bigger than BO, and AO didn't have intact bony cortex. In the AO group, there was less calcification in the lesion, less edema of bone marrow and adjacent soft tissue around the lesion. The post-operation recurrence of AO was higher than BO. Key words: Spine; Bone neoplasms; Tomography, X-ray computed; Magnetic resonance imaging; Neoplasm recurrence, local