Sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis. A report of nineteen cases, with special reference to etiology and treatment

The cases of nineteen patients with sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis were reviewed retrospectively. Of particular interest were the responses to antibiotics and prostaglandin inhibitors. The prostaglandin inhibitors relieved the pain within three to four weeks in sixteen of eighteen patients so treated. However, the inhibitors gradually became less effective in most patients. Oral antibiotics were more effective than the inhibitors in relieving the pain of eight of the eleven patients who were given antibiotics. Pustulosis palmaris and plantaris, commonly associated with sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis, diminished after antibiotic therapy, as did the chest pain in most patients. The similarities between the age and sex distributions and the responses to antibiotics of the patients with sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis and those with pustulosis suggest that these disorders have a common etiology, and that the pustulosis may be a so-called bacterid reaction and the hyperostosis, a manifestation of a systemic reaction to a focal infection.