Hematopoietic bone marrow hyperplasia: high prevalence on MR images of the knee in asymptomatic marathon runners.

In a prior study of marathon runners, we noticed that MR scans of the knee frequently showed hyperplasia of red (i.e., hematopoietic) bone marrow. Because the frequency of this finding in various populations is unknown, the purpose of this study was to determine the relative prevalences of hematopoietic bone marrow hyperplasia on MR examinations of the knees of healthy volunteers (n = 74), patients with symptoms of knee disorders (n = 54), and asymptomatic marathon runners (n = 23). The prevalence of hematopoietic bone marrow hyperplasia was 3% (2/74) for the healthy volunteers, 15% (8/54) for the patients, and 43% (10/23) for the marathon runners. The difference in prevalence between each of the three groups was statistically significant at p less than .05 in each case with hematopoietic bone marrow hyperplasia, the distal femur was the only area affected, while the epiphysis and proximal tibia were uninvolved. This pattern of affected bone marrow with hyperplasia of the hematopoietic marrow may be useful for the differential diagnosis. We postulate that the high prevalence of hematopoietic bone marrow hyperplasia in marathon runners may develop as a response to "sports anemia", which is commonly found in highly conditioned, aerobically trained athletes. Furthermore, this is considered to be a normal variant when found in the pattern described here.