Clinicopathological characteristics of costal hemangiomas: a case report and literature review

Bone hemangioma accounts for approximately 1% of all bone neoplasms and commonly occurs in the vertebral body and skull. However, costal hemangiomas are extremely rare. We herein present a case involving a 52-year-old woman with a hemangioma in the third rib and review 29 cases of rib hemangiomas available in the literature. Rib hemangioma mainly affects women in their 50s and has expansile osteolytic features in radiographs and a weak maximum standardized uptake value in (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography images. When these findings are displayed, clinicians should include rib hemangioma as a differential diagnosis and consider avoidance of preoperative biopsy because of the risk of life-threatening bleeding.