Intravertebral vacuum cleft: notes on five cases.

Analysis of five personal cases of the intravertebral vacuum cleft phenomenon and a close examination of the literature, suggest that it is rather more frequent than it first appears. Intravertebral vacuum cleft tends to occur more readily in the vertebrae of the dorsolumbar hinge and mainly in the elderly, slightly more common in women than men. The main factors, from the pathogenetic point of view, are osteoporosis, a history of trauma and frequent occurrence of rheumatic problems which are often complicated by vasculitis. The comparison between excessive uptake of calcium-mimetic technetium and uptake deficit of technetium phytate by the vertebra with a vacuum cleft, leads us to consider it as an expression of osteo and bone marrow necrosis.