Paget's Disease of the Bone
Audrey Pekarik
What is Paget's Disease
Paget's disease is a chronic disease that leads
to enlarged and misshapen bones. The bone's
remodeling is disturbed and not synchronized.
This causes the bone to be enlarged, not as
dense, and brittle. The disease becomes more
common with age.
What Causes Paget's
It is not entirely known what causes Paget's
disease. However, certain genes have been
associated with it such as the
Sequestrosome 1 gene on chromosome 5. Also,
viral infection may be necessary to trigger the
disease in people who have inherited the gene.
Symptoms
Most of the time there are no symptoms and it is
often found on x rays taken for another reason.
Paget's disease can cause bone-pain, deformity,
fractures and arthritis. The pain is located in the
affected bone.The most common bones affected
are the spine, femur, pelvis, skull, clavicle, and
humerus.
Symptoms Continued
Other symptoms depend on which bones are
affected. Enlarged bones can pinch nerves and
cause tingling and numbness. If the disease
affects the hips or knees it can cause arthritis,
limping, and pain or stiffness of the knee or hip. If
it affects the legs, they can become bowed. If the
skull is affected it can cause headaches, and
loss of hearing and vision. If the disease is wide
spread, congestive heart failure can occur
because of the high workload for the heart.
Diagnosis and Prognosis
Paget's disease is diagnosed based on x ray
appearance as well as possible bone scans, MRI
scans, or CT scans. Also blood tests are used
because an enzyme that comes from bone, alkaline
phosphatase, is usually elevated in people who have
Paget's disease because of the abnormal remodeling.
The prognosis is generally good. The symptoms
progress slowly and the disease doesn't spread to
healthy bones like cancer. However, there is no cure.
Treatment
Since there is no cure, the goal of the treatment
is to control the disease's activity and the
complications. When there are no symptoms or
elevated levels of alkaline phosphatase, then
treatment isn't necessary. Bone pain can require
NSAIDs. Deformity can require supports.
Surgery may be necessary for damaged joints,
fractures, severely deformed bones, or when
nerves are being pinched by enlarged bone.
Medications such as bisphosphonates or
injectable calcitonin may be used.
Works Cited
• http://www.medicinenet.com/pagets_disease/p
age2.htm
• http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pagetsdisease-ofbone/DS00485/DSECTION=symptoms
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paget%27s_diseas
e_of_bone
• http://uwmsk.org/static/residentprojects/paget8
511.jpg