Prospective spine at risk program for prevalence of intracanal spine lesions in pediatric hereditary multiple osteochondromas

Surgical outcomes of spinal osteochondroma in children: A multicentre observational study

BACKGROUND

Spinal osteochondroma (or exostosis) is a rare benign tumour whose clinical manifestations are delayed due to their slow growth and location. Few studies have addressed the characteristics and the diagnostic and therapeutic peculiarities of spinal osteochondroma in children. The objective of this multicentre observational study was to assess the outcomes of a cohort of children after surgery for spinal osteochondroma.

HYPOTHESIS

Surgical excision of spinal osteochondroma in children is not followed by complications or recurrences.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

We included consecutive children who had surgery between 2010 and 2018 at any of eight participating centres to remove spinal osteochondromas. The cause, clinical manifestations, and location of the lesions were collected. The surgical outcomes were evaluated after at least 2 years' follow-up.

RESULTS

We identified 22 patients who had surgery to remove 26 spinal osteochondromas at a mean age of 12.8±2.6 years. Among them, 7 had a solitary osteochondroma (SO group) and 15 had hereditary multiple osteochondromas (HMO group). At diagnosis, 72% of patients had clinical signs (spinal pain, n=4; one or more lumps, n=5; and neurological manifestations, n=3). In the HMO group, the diagnosis was made during routine MRI screening for tumours involving the spinal canal. Most osteochondromas involved the cervical spine (n=13), with no difference between the two groups (p=0.9). The lamina was the most common location but 54% of the tumours were growing within the canal (92% in the HMO group). After a mean follow-up of 5.2±4.4 years, no patients had experienced any recurrences or complications related to the disease or treatment.

DISCUSSION

Surgical excision of spinal osteochondromas in children is effective, with no medium-term recurrences. Our results also confirm the low peri-operative morbidity, even when the canal is involved, and the absence of any effect at last follow-up on spinal alignment. All patients with neurological manifestations at diagnosis made a full recovery.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

IV, retrospective observational cohort study.

Hereditary Multiple Exostoses-A Review of the Molecular Background, Diagnostics, and Potential Therapeutic Strategies

Hereditary multiple exostoses (HMEs) syndrome, also known as multiple osteochondromas, represents a rare and severe human skeletal disorder. The disease is characterized by multiple benign cartilage-capped bony outgrowths, termed exostoses or osteochondromas, that locate most commonly in the juxta-epiphyseal portions of long bones. Affected individuals usually complain of persistent pain caused by the pressure on neighboring tissues, disturbance of blood circulation, or rarely by spinal cord compression. However, the most severe complication of this condition is malignant transformation into chondrosarcoma, occurring in up to 3.9% of HMEs patients. The disease results mainly from heterozygous loss-of-function alterations in the EXT1 or EXT2 genes, encoding Golgi-associated glycosyltransferases, responsible for heparan sulfate biosynthesis. Some of the patients with HMEs do not carry pathogenic variants in those genes, hence the presence of somatic mutations, deep intronic variants, or another genes/loci is suggested. This review presents the systematic analysis of current cellular and molecular concepts of HMEs along with clinical characteristics, clinical and molecular diagnostic methods, differential diagnosis, and potential treatment options.