Quantitative analysis of solitary lesions of bone

To quantitate the radiographic features of common solitary lesions of bone using vector analysis to optimize their radiographic description.

Plain radiographs of 709 solitary bone lesions were reviewed. Relevant demographic, anatomic, and structural data were cataloged. These data were used to approximate the vector space defined by all possible solitary lesions of bone. Vector space analysis on the entire set of lesions was performed to determine similarities among and between lesion types.

The 709 lesions generated 614 separate vectors within the appearance vector space. Only 10 vectors were represented more than 3 times, indicating great variability among and between most lesion types. Osteochondromas (with two vectors repeated 10 and 15 times, respectively) and peripheral chondrosarcomas (with one vector repeated 5 times) were relatively uniform in appearance. Gender bias was present for multiple types of lesions. Larger lesions that involved more than one anatomic center were more likely to be malignant. Lesions occurring in the femoral diaphysis and pelvic flat bones were statistically more likely to be malignant.

Analysis shows that most lesions have highly varied vectors in the appearances within the vector space. More in-depth analysis of each lesion type using this quantitative technique is required to better define individual lesion subspaces and hence their radiographic appearances with respect to other bone lesions.