Surgical management of rare benign tumors of the sternum

Primary benign tumors of the sternum are an exceedingly rare entity. Surgical techniques regarding intervention for these lesions are not clearly defined in the literature given their scarcity. Operative techniques include en-bloc resection of the tumor, and this has proven to be successful in preventing local recurrence despite benign nature of the lesion. Given the often extensive defect created by the excision, reconstruction is frequently necessary; depending on the size of the defect, either autologous bone grafting or the use of synthetic materials may be indicated. This study serves to present two cases of rare primary benign tumors of the sternum, giant cell tumors and osteoma spongiosum and to summarize the available literature. We present a review of the literature of 17sternal giant cell tumor cases reported so far including our patient and unique case of osteoma spongiosum of the sternum, that discusses their surgical management, as well as reconstructive techniques that provided an excellent clinical result and a lack of recurrence on long term follow-up.