Vanishing bone disease: a review.

c b anishing bone disease, or Gorham disease, was first efined as a specific entity by Gorham and Stout in 955; it is a rare disorder characterized by proliferaion of vascular channels, which results in destruction nd resorption of osseous matrix. Only a few cases ave been reported in the jaws. Vanishing bone disase or massive osteolysis of the lower jaw will iniially affect the mandibular basal and alveolar bone, hich subsequently involves the rami and the conyles. The etiology remains speculative, the prognosis s unpredictable, and effective therapy has still not een determined. The purposes of this review are to ake our community aware of this rare entity and to iscuss the etiopathology, clinical presentation, radioraphic findings, differential diagnoses, and treatment odalities for patients with vanishing bone disease. Numerous names have been used in the literature o describe this condition, such as phantom bone, isappearing or vanishing bone disease, acute sponaneous absorption of bone, hemangiomatosis, lymhangiomatosis, idiopathic osteolysis, and Gorham isease. It is characterized by the spontaneous and rogressive destruction of one or more of the skeletal ones. Idiopathic osteolysis was described first in 838 and again in 1872 by Jackson, who reported a ase of a “boneless arm.” Romer reported the first ase in the jaws in 1924, in a 31-year-old woman. In 954 Gorham et al reported on 2 patients with masive osteolysis of the bone. One was a boy, aged 16 ears, with right clavicle and scapula involvement. hylothorax eventually developed, and the patient ied. The other patient was a man, aged 44 years, ho also had involvement of the right clavicle and capula. In addition, these authors provided a brief eview of 16 reported cases from the literature. In 955 Gorham and Stout provided a more compre-