68-year-old male:
* Presents with a mass around knee which has been present for seven years and has been enlarging since then
What do you see?
A sclerotic ill-defined soft tissue mass around the knee was present on radiographs.
The mass is located in the soft tissue around the knee with no apparent bone destruction.
Coronal fat-suppressed T2 WI (a) shows a hyperintense lobulated mass which was hypointense on T1 WI (b) and has peripheral heterogeneous enhancement on postcontrast T1 WI (c); cortical bone is preserved.
The mass encircles a pedunculated lesion which continues with cortical and medullary bone (arrows), consistent with an osteochondroma.
Histopathologic diagnosis of the mass is chondrosarcoma.
Osteochondromas
* Osteochondromas are developmental lesions rather than true neoplasms and are often referred to as an osteocartilaginous exostosis (or simply exostosis).
* An osteochondroma is composed of cortical and medullary bone protruding from and continuous with the underlying bone; cortical and medullary continuity between the osteochondroma and parent bone is well depicted on MRI.
* Malignant transformation, almost invariably due to chondrosarcoma arising in the cartilage cap of the lesion, occurs in approximately 1% of solitary osteochondromas.
* Lesions that grow or cause pain after skeletal maturity should be suspected of malignant transformation since osteochondromas only rarely enlarge after this time.
