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Tests and diagnosis
By Mayo Clinic staffIf you have monostotic fibrous dysplasia, you may not know it until it's discovered incidentally on an X-ray for another condition. If you have signs and symptoms, your doctor will perform a physical examination and order X-rays of the affected bones. On X-ray, fibrous dysplasia appears as an abnormal section of bone (lesion) that has the hazy appearance of ground glass.
In some cases, your doctor may order more tests to confirm diagnosis or to determine the extent of the disorder. They include:
- Imaging tests. Computerized tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans may be used to determine how extensively your bones are affected.
- Bone scan. This test uses radioactive tracers, which are injected into your body. Your bones take up the tracers and emit radiation that's captured by a special camera, which produces a picture of your skeleton. Your doctor may order a bone scan to determine whether your fibrous dysplasia is monostotic or polyostotic.
- Bone biopsy. Surgically removing a sample of affected bone for examination under a microscope is necessary only if your doctor suspects cancer. During a biopsy, a surgeon removes a small piece of your affected bone for analysis in a laboratory.
A biopsy can be performed as an open biopsy, meaning that it requires anesthesia and surgery to get to your bone. In some situations, a surgeon inserts a long needle through your skin into your bone to take a biopsy (fine-needle aspiration). This procedure requires local anesthetics to numb the area where the needle is inserted.
- 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.
