Bone marrow edema signal can be seen in many settings ranging from trauma and arthritis to less common conditions including transient osteoporosis, transient bone marrow edema syndrome, true osteonecrosis, spontaneous osteonecrosis, and shifting bone marrow edema. Terms such as spontaneous osteonecrosis of the knee (SONK) appear frequently in the radiology and orthopedics literature but are rarely described on true, histologic basis. This article reviews the less frequently encountered and less well understood entities and explores their potential pathophysiologies and significance.
Infection of the foot is common, especially in the diabetic population. Over the past decade, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become a 'gold standard' for evaluation of pedal infection. Therefore it is important for the radiologist to understand the MRI appearance of various manifestations of infection as well as conditions that may simulate infection, including neuropathic disease.
Bone marrow edema (BME), also termed bone marrow lesions, is a syndrome characterized by bone pain and the appearance of high signal intensity on T2 fat-suppressed and short tau inversion recovery (STIR) MRI sequences. BME can be related to trauma or a variety of non-traumatic diseases, and current treatment modalities include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), bisphosphonates, denosumab, extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT), the vasoactive prostacyclin analogue iloprost, and surgical decompression. Spontaneous BME is a subset that has been observed with no apparent causative conditions. It is most likely caused by venous outflow obstruction and intraosseous hypertension. These are mechanistically related to impaired perfusion and ischemia in several models of BME and are related to bone remodeling. The association of perfusion abnormalities and bone pain provides the pathophysiological rationale for surgical decompression. We present a case of spontaneous BME and a second case of spontaneous migratory BME treated with surgical decompression and demonstrate resolution of pain and the high signal intensity on MRI. This report provides an integration of the clinical syndrome, MR imaging characteristics, circulatory pathophysiology, and treatment. It draws upon several studies to suggest that both the bone pain and the MRI characteristics are related to venous stasis, and when circulatory pathologies are relieved by decompression or fenestration, both the bone pain and the MRI signal abnormalities resolve.
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