HYPERVITAMINOSIS A WITH INFANTILE CORTICAL HYPEROSTOSIS

Abstract

In recent years, and particularly since the report of Caffey and Silverman in 1945, attention has been directed to what appears to be a new clinical entity found in infants. The disease has been called infantile cortical hyperostosis, or Caffey's disease.¹ At 4 to 6 months of age the patient manifests fretfulness, irritability, loss of appetite. The course is febrile or subfebrile. Painful thickenings of the upper and lower extremities associated with circumscribed, soft tissue areas of induration and swelling develop in the extremities, the head, face and the chest wall. In 1930 Roske² reported a closely similar syndrome. An increasing number of cases are being reported in the literature, particularly from large clinics that have reexamined their old files of pediatric films and have failed to find these changes on reevaluation of their earlier studies.³ The conclusion, therefore, seems justified that physicians are dealing with a