An unusual cause of low back pain: solitary lumbar spine osteochondroma in a 71-year-old man

Osteochondromas, despite being one of the most common primary bone tumours, usually occur in the appendicular skeleton, the spine being a rare location for this tumour that usually appear in the second or third decade of life[1,3]. Osteochondromas involving the spine may produce local pain, neurologic symptoms from spinal cord or roots compression or remain asymptomatic[14]. This is a report of an unusual case of solitary spinal osteochondroma of the lamina of L3 in a 71-year-old man. The advanced age of this patient is quite unusual for an osteochondroma, since only seven other cases of spinal osteochondromas in patients older than 60 years have been previously reported in the literature[10,11]. A brief summary of the literature of this uncommon late onset lesion is included where suggestion of possible growth of spinal osteochondromas beyond skeletal maturity is made[8,11].