[Radiologic and scintigraphic diagnosis of primary chronic osteomyelitis in childhood]

Problems in the radiological and scintigraphic diagnosis of primary chronic osteomyelitis are discussed with reference to ten patients aged two to 13 years. Radiologically the lesions usually showed reduced bone density with surrounding sclerosis, most commonly in the distal femoral or proximal tibial metaphysis. In five children the lesions were multilocular. In four children the lesion had not healed after two years. One lesion resembling a tumour, which suffered a pathological fracture, is described. In three patients the initial bone scintigrams showed no abnormalities despite definite radiological lesions. A normal three-phase bone scintigram does not exclude osteomyelitis during childhood.