Epidemiology of aneurysmal bone cyst in children: a multicenter study and literature review

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to review the demographic data of children and adolescents with aneurysmal bone cysts (ABCs). The authors performed a retrospective, multicenter, pediatric population-based analysis of 156 patients with primary ABCs. Only patients with histologic confirmation of the diagnosis were included. A review of French and English literature of 255 children and adolescents was included regarding sex, location of the lesion and age at diagnosis. There were 212 boys and 199 girls with a median age at diagnosis of 10.2 years (range, 1.5-17 years). Forty-four patients were under 5 years of age; 111 patients were between 5 and 10 years of age, and 139 were older than 10 years of age. The femur, tibia, spine, humerus, pelvis and fibula were the most common locations. In 256 cases (62.7%), ABCs occurred in long bones. We also studied the data and location of 161 ABCs of the mobile spine (13 cases from our series and 148 from the literature review). There were 48 ABCs in the cervical spine, 48 in the thoracic spine, and 65 in the lumbar spine. We found no main differences in site distribution and sex, between the children and the general population.