[The hyperostotic foot]

Abstract

Clinical and radiological examination of the foot in 25 cases of ankylosing verteral hyperostosis revealed signs of the disease in 16 cases: eleven patients had painful symptoms (predominantly pain in the heel, 9 cases) and and five had radiological changes in the feet which led to the discovery of the characteristic vertebral involvement. As for other extra-vertebral sites of vertebral hyperostosis, the foot warrants careful examination. The radiological lesions consist of osteophytic proliferations of the calcaneum (sometimes pathognomonic), scattered ossifications in the ligaments of the inferior and posterior aspects of this bone, the neck of the talus, the dorsum of the mid-foot, the internal aspect of the tarsal scaphoid or the external face of the styloid apophysis of the 5th metatarsal, and a bony proliferation enlarging the base of the distal phalanx of the big toe.