title: Osteoid-osteoma: diagnostic problems.
abstract: The clinical records and roentgenograms of fifty-four patients had the typical features of osteoid-osteoma, but no histological evidence of a nidus was found at initial surgery. The symptoms of thirty-one patients were relieved by initial operation and those of twenty-three were not. In two cases, Brodie's abscess was identified in the surgical specimen. A second operation in eighteen patients brought relief in thirteen, and a nidus was found histologically in seven of these patients. A parosteal osteogenic sarcoma was found in one of the patients who had no relief of symptoms. Three patients underwent a third operation and were relieved of symptoms, a nidus being found in two. Thus, symptoms were relieved in thirty-six of forty-two patients in whom no nidus or other pathological entity was found, indicating the significance of this symptomatic sclerotic osseous lesion.
mesh_terms: D000038:Abscess / Q000209:etiology; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001859:Bone Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000473:pathology; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010017:Osteoma, Osteoid / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D011859:Radiography