An Overview and Insights into Osteochondroma – A Rare Tumor of Bone and Cartilage

Osteochondromas are the rare benign and malignant tumour of the growing bone, usually affecting the young adults. Solitary osteocartilaginous exostosis is more common than the hereditary multiple exostosis (HME). The first 3 decades of life has maximum chances of getting affected with osteochondroma and hardly occurs in craniofacial bones because of the fact that these bones are not formed by endochondral ossification. Most of the symptoms occur at the periphery of the bone tissues, with causes of osteochondroma being unknown. It involves in genetic condition and is associated with mutations of EXT1 or EXT2 genes. Diagnosis is difficult at symptomless stage, incidentally it is diagnosed when X-ray is carried out. Detection of tumor by ultra sound is accurate than other diagnosis process. No treatment is required other than regular monitoring of tumor. Standard allele specific PCR based techniques on osteochondroma showing both recombine and intact alleles were reported. The observation shows that osteochondroma complicated clonal growth is due to EXT-1-null chondrocytes, variation in the percentage of lacZ genes and researchers recommended that narrow follow ups are required for further developmental analysis with absolute certainty. In this review, a report on research and developments of osteochondroma is discussed with authors suggestions.