Chronic Nonbacterial Osteomyelitis: A Case Study

Chronic nonbacterial osteomyelitis is an inflammatory disease of the musculoskeletal system, which mainly affects long bones, but has been known to appear anywhere in the skeleton. Other body systems, including the digestive system and respiratory system are sometimes affected by the disease, even though it begins with the skeletal system. CNO is closely related to SAPHO syndrome in adults. It is diagnosed by MRI, clinical reports of symptoms, and other analyses since there are no standard criteria to diagnose one with CNO. This study focused on the treatment of CNO through NSAIDs at initial diagnosis through the first year of treatment. On average, it was five months between first symptoms and diagnosis for the patients since CNO has so many diagnostic methods. At the diagnosis of thirty …show more content…
Only 14% complained of asymmetry. The lesions were greatly lessened, with new ones only forming in the extremities. There was no link found between the number of lesions and the severity of symptoms. The naproxen proved to show no side effects and in 43% of cases the patients required no additional treatments alongside it. Only four patients showed a progressed state of CNO, while the rest remained unchanged. It is unclear if NSAID treatments will have to be continued throughout the patient’s life, but they are able to step down after an additional six weeks of treatment.
This study was very beneficial. It showed significant decreases in the symptoms of a sometimes debilitating pediatric disease. Since there is no agreed upon treatment for chronic nonbacterial osteomyelitis, this study took a risk in trying to define a treatment that lessened both clinical symptoms and physical symptoms. This disease is rare, so there is little data to study and most studies are performed after other treatments have already failed, which can taint the