[Echography compared with conventional radiology in Osgood-Schlatter disease]

This paper was aimed at estimating sonographic (US) accuracy in patients with clinical suspicion of Osgood-Schlatter's disease. This disease affects the patellar tendon in its attachment to the tibial tuberosity; boys are affected more frequently than girls, and during adolescence. Its pathognomic signs are: focal soft-tissue swelling anterior to the tibial tuberosity, edema of the inferior infrapatellar fat pad, and swelling of the ligamentum patellae with loss of the interface between the latter and posterior soft tissue. A comparative study was carried out of the X-rays and US examinations of the knee in 21 patients with Osgood-Schlatter's disease; X-rays exams employed the double-shield and double-film box methods, to allow the contemporaneous evaluation of both skeletal and soft-tissue features. The results prove that the soft-tissue changes observed with X-rays can be correctly depicted also by US. Thus, in our opinion, US has proved to have the same diagnostic accuracy as X-rays, and could therefore become the first-choice examination in both the diagnosis and the follow-up of Osgood-Schlatter's disease.