Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Symptoms
By Mayo Clinic staff
Fibrous dysplasia can affect any bone in your body. Most people with the disorder have only one affected bone — a form called monostotic fibrous dysplasia — and develop no signs or symptoms. When the condition affects more than one bone, it's known as polyostotic fibrous dysplasia. Bones most commonly affected are:
- Thighbone (femur)
- Shinbone (tibia)
- Pelvic bones
- Ribs
- Skull
- Facial bones
- Upper arm bone (humerus)
Fibrous dysplasia may cause few or no signs and symptoms, particularly if the condition is mild. Signs and symptoms may develop during childhood, adolescence or adulthood. If you have the polyostotic form, you're more likely to develop signs and symptoms, usually by age 10. More severe fibrous dysplasia may cause:
- Bone pain
- Difficulty walking
- Bone deformities
- Fractures
In rare cases, fibrous dysplasia may be associated with abnormalities in the hormone-producing glands of your endocrine system — such as your pituitary gland — that regulate various functions throughout your body, including:
- Very early puberty (precocious puberty). Girls with McCune-Albright syndrome may experience menstrual bleeding and other signs of puberty before age 8. Boys with the condition may show signs of puberty at a younger age than normal, but early puberty in boys is less common than it is in girls.
- Thyroid gland problems. This small gland in the neck, which affects metabolism, may be enlarged or have cysts.
- Skin discoloration. Patches of darker skin, known as cafe au lait spots, appear light coffee colored on fairer children, but may be difficult to see on children with darker skin.
When to see a doctor
See your doctor if you or your child develops bone pain, has difficulty walking or fractures a bone, particularly more than once.
- Fibrous dysplasia. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00083. Accessed May 11, 2009.
- DiCaprio MR, et al. Fibrous dysplasia. Pathophysiology, evaluation, and treatment. The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. 2005;87:1848.
- Leet AI, et al. Current approach to fibrous dysplasia of bone and McCune-Albright syndrome. Journal of Children's Orthopaedics. 2007;1:3.
- Polyostotic fibrous dysplasia. Craniofacial & Skeletal Diseases Branch, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. http://csdb.nidr.nih.gov/frame_clinical_bkg.htm. Accessed May 11, 2009.
- Glorieux FH, et al. Medical therapy of children with fibrous dysplasia. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. 2006;21(suppl):P110.
- Chapurlat RD, et al. Fibrous dysplasia of bone and McCune-Albright syndrome. Best Practice & Research Clinical Rheumatology. 2008;22:55.
