Rib caries

Rib caries is rather an infrequent disease but it is by no means a rare condition. There are many faces of its pathogenesis, presenting symptoms and radiologic findings but few references are encoutered even inprestreptomycin era in Western World (and almost none in Korea!) Authors present 54 cases of rib caries, confirmed between 1968 and 1978 at Seoul National University Hospital and analyze clinical and radiological findings of 30cases whose medical charts and roentgen pictures are available. The results are as follows; 1. Male exceeds female in ratio of 1.5:1 and the 3rd decade is the predilection age, followed by the 2nd decade. Presenting symptoms are swelling mass, pain or tendeness, pus discharge or sinus formation in order of frequency. Duration is ranging from 5 days to 3 years but mostly between 1 month and 6 months. Right hemithorax is a more prevalent site than left inratio of 2:1. 2. 14 cases (47%) show bone lesion-osteolytic (11 cases) on shaft (9 cases) of a single rib (9).Minority comprises multiple ribs involvment, osteoblastic or mixed bone change and costochondral or costovertebral involvement. soft tissue swelling is seen in 17 cases(57%) and pleural change 10 cases(33%). 4 cases yield nopositive findings. 3. Pulmonary tuberculosis is present in 12 cases (40%), 8 of which are minimal active and 4inactive. No spinal or other bone and joint tuberculosis and genitourinary tuberculosis are associated in entire series.