Human Vertebral Column, Ankylosing Spondylitis

KOH-441 $309.00

This partial vertebral column shows bone pathology caused by ankylosing spondylitis. This disease reaches back thousands of years, with some suggestion of its appearance in the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs. It also has been found in crocodiles from the Miocene and Pliocene periods, as well as in other animals. Its effects on the human spine first described by a physician at the end of the 17th century, ankylosing spondylitis (also called 'bamboo spine') is a progressive inflammatory disease resulting in syndesmophyte fusion across vertebral bodies. This partial vertebral column displays evidence of a compression fracture of the body of T9 with accentuated thoracic curvature. There is fusion of all units through the coalescence of osteophytes (alterior longitudinal ligament) and fusion of the apophyseal facets. There is also fusion of the twelfth rib to the vertebral body (left).