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BackgroundThe geographic distribution of osteochondroma (OC) varies greatly around the world. There has been no recent report on OC in a large Chinese population. The aim of this study was to characterize OC by an epidemiological analysis of the clinical data from one medical institution in South China.MethodsWe searched medical electronic records from January 2001 to January 2016 in one large hospital in South China to identify patients with a definite diagnosis of OC. Their epidemiological data were collected and analyzed statistically, including gender, tumor site, age at first diagnosis and symptoms, local recurrence and malignant transformation. Differences between genders and between solitary osteochondroma (SO) and multiple osteochondroma (MO) were particularly analyzed.ResultsA total of 431 OC patients (291 males and 140 females; 329 SOs and 102 MOs) were identified. The gender ratio was 2.08 with a male predominance. OCs were mostly located around the knee (250 cases). 280 patients were in their 0s to 20s upon first diagnosis. The average age at the time of first diagnosis was 20.63 years for all, 18.47 years for males and 25.11 years for females (P=0.000). OC recurred locally in 35 patients (15 SOs and 20 MOs), with a significant difference between SO/MO (P=0.000) but not between genders (P=0.100). The average interval from the primary surgery to local or malignant recurrence was 37.41 months. Malignant transformation was found in 5 patients (4 males and 1 female), showing no gender difference (P=0.549).ConclusionsOC may have a male predominance in Chinese population. It mostly occurred at 0–20 years of age and around the knee. Upon the first diagnosis of OC, the males tended to be younger than the females, and so did the MO patients than the SO ones. In addition, MO had a higher incidence of local recurrence. Intervals from primary surgery to local recurrence or malignant transformation in MO patients were longer than in SO patients.

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