Thiemann's Disease: A Case Report

Yoon Ha Kim; Jee Young Lee

doi:10.13104/imri.2017.21.4.273

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Kim and Lee: Thiemann's Disease: A Case Report

Original Article

iMRI 2017;21(4):273-275.

Published online: 12 January 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13104/imri.2017.21.4.273

Thiemann's Disease: A Case Report

Yoon Ha Kim, Jee Young Lee

^¹Department of Radiology, Dankook University Hospital, Cheonan, Korea

Correspondence to: Jee Young Lee, M.D. Department of Radiology, Dankook University Hospital, 201 Manghyang-ro, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan 31116, Korea. Tel. +82-41-550-6921 Fax. +82-41-552-9674 E-mail: jyleee@dankook.ac.kr

Received 2 November 2017 Revised 2 November 2017 Accepted 1 December 2017

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Thiemann's disease is a form of idiopathic avascular necrosis of the immature epiphyses of the phalanges of the fingers and toes. Few cases of Thiemann's disease have been reported because the disease is rare and difficult to diagnose. To the best of our knowledge, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of Thiemann's disease have not been reported. Here, we report a case of Thiemann's disease diagnosed by typical clinical symptoms and characteristic MRI findings before radiologic bony abnormalities were apparent.

Keywords: Thiemann's disease, Phalanges, Magnetic resonance imaging

References

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Fig. 1.

Simple radiograph of right fifth finger shows no fracture line or other abnormal bone lesion.

Fig. 2.

MRI of right hand (a) on coronal T1-weighted image shows diffuse low-signal intensity lesion with loss of normal fat marrow signal confined to the proximal epiphysis of the right fifth middle phalanx. There was no definite fracture line. (b) The sagittal T1-weighted image also shows diffuse dark signal intensity lesion in same region. (c) The sagittal fat-suppressed (c) The sagittal fat-suppressed T2-weighted image shows abnormal linear high-signal intensity lesion in proximal epiphysis of the right fifth middle phalanx. There was no significant joint effusion in proximal interphalangeal and distal interphalangeal joints of right fifth finger.

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