A rare case of a giant cervical osteochondroma

Osteochondroma, also known as osteocartilaginous exostosis or just exostosis, was initially described in 1843 by Reid [1]; it is a common benign tumor of the bone accounting for 10% to 15% of all bone tumors and 20% to 50% of all benign bone tumors [2]. These lesions are the most common benign tumors of the appendicular skeleton, located in the metaphyseal region of long bones, particularly the distal femur and proximal tibia while occur less frequently in the axial skeleton [3-5]. They occur in a solitary or multiple form; also called osteochondromatosis or hereditary multiple exostosis (HME) [6-8]. Spinal involvement accounts for approximately 3% of cases [5-9]. Any portion of the vertebral body may be affected. Spinal osteochondromas represent 1.3% to 4.1% of all osteochondromas and for less than 4% of spinal neoplasms [3,10-15]. The role of the genes or of the immune system in the pathogenesis of osteochondroma seems to be less understood as compared to other diseases so as far for neoangiogenesis [16-20].