Previously Reported Cases of Malignant Change in Fibrous Dy5pla5ia

Since Coley and Stewart (1945) recorded two cases of sarcomatous change in polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, there have been a further twelve reported cases ofmalignant change occurring in patients with fibrous dysplasia (Table I). Eight ofthese occurred in patients with polyostotic fibrous dysplasia and, of these, three were in patients with Albright’s syndrome. Of the other six patients, in five the malignant change occurred in a single bone affected by fibrous dysplasia, and in one I have been unable to obtain full details (Gyri 1951). Although Elmslie distinguished clearly between “ diffuse fibrosis of bone “ and what we now know as hyperparathyroidism as early as 1914, the term fibrocystic disease continued to be applied to a number of bone conditions having similar appearances but different causes until Lichtenstein (1938) coined the title fibrous dysplasia. Consequently it is difficult to trace instances ofmalignant change in fibrous dysplasia before 1938, but it does seem that a patient reported by Elmslie in 1914 (referred to as Lawford Knaggs’s case) was in fact a true instance of sarcomatous change in polyostotic fibrous dysplasia.