Osteophytes

OSTEOPHYTES (from Greek osteon-bone and phyton-growth, offshoot), a limited bony outgrowth of small size, consisting of bone tissue and appearing as a result of a local hypertrophic process. The form of such outgrowths can be extremely varied: either they are thin, resembling spurs, teeth, or broader, similar to horns, tubercles, etc. Larger and more extensive outgrowths are called exostoses. Osteophytes can have both spongy and compact structure. In their initial development, osteophytes usually consist of thin delicate bone trabeculae with wide bone marrow spaces and numerous blood vessels between them. Subsequently, due to the activity of osteoblasts appearing on these trabeculae, they become more compact, often even taking on a sharply sclerotic character. The tissue from which osteophytes develop in the vast majority of cases is the periosteum; the process itself causing their development is of a productive inflammation nature (so-called periostitis ossificans) and is expressed in the proliferation of the inner layer of the periosteum with the formation of osteoid beams and their subsequent calcification. Such inflammation often appears independently under the influence of trauma or infection (especially syphilitic); more often it represents a secondary productive reaction of the periosteum, arising in response to the most diverse inflammatory changes in neighboring parts, both within the bone (osteomyelitis of various origins) and in adjacent soft tissues (ulcerative processes in the skin, inflammation of joints, etc.). In addition to periosteal origin, osteophytes can sometimes have a different origin, forming as a result of chronic ossifying processes in adjacent tendons, fasciae, and intermuscular connective tissue (so-called myositis ossificans circumscripta) (see also Bone and Myositis).