PubMed1977
The radiological criteria of juvenile, rheumatic, cervical synostosis discovered in adult life are described and illustrated. These include: involvement of few or many segments, a tendency to bony ankylosis of the diseased intervertebral joints, dysplasias or hypoplasia of the vertebral body and intervertebral disc and dysplasias of the neural arches and hypoplasia of the transverse processes. Pathological ossification may involve the ligamentum flavum, the annulus, or the entire disc. The differential diagnosis of juvenile, rheumatic, cervical synostosis includes congenital block vertebrae, Klippel-Feil syndrome, acquired block vertebrae, juvenile ankylosing spondylitis, synostosing, intervertebral osteochondrosis and myositis ossificans progressiva.