Fibrous lesions of bones

A large variety of benign and malignant fibrous lesions occur in the skeleton. Many fibrous bone lesions have characteristic features on plain radiographs and are easy to diagnose; others may pose significant difficulty. Most often, an osteolytic defect is seen associated with a fibrous lesion in the affected bone, although a mixed and sclerotic fibrous bone lesion is not unusual. Many benign fibrous bone lesions are asymptomatic; others become clinically apparent because of associated pathologic fracture or deformity of the involved bone. Malignant fibrous lesions tend to be aggressive, with focal bone destruction and adjacent soft-tissue involvement. The authors describe many fibrous bone lesions with their salient clinical and radiographic features.