[Pseudo-spondylodiscitis as manifestation of diffuse articular chondrocalcinosis (author's transl)]

Articular chondrocalcinosis (ACC), which is due to the precipitation of calcium pyrophosphate microcrystals, is known to produce symptom of acute arthritis or chronic degenerative polyarticular lesions. It is more rarely responsible for rapidly destructive lesions of the joints suggesting a metabolic or neurological process. The case reported here of a 66 year old woman with major lesions of the L1-L2 intervertebral space, together with other cases already published, shows that the destructive spinal forms of ACC may also present as subacute spondylodiscitis. The latter, however, merely represents 4.9% of all destructive articular lesions of ACC and 5.2% of the vertebral localizations of all forms of the disease.