Imaging features of maxillary osteoblastoma and its malignant transformation

Abstract

We report two cases of osteoblastoma, one of them an unusual case in a 32-year-old woman in whom a maxillary tumor was confidently diagnosed as an osteoblastoma at the time of primary excision and subsequently transformed into an osteosarcoma 7 years after the onset of clinical symptoms. The other patient developed osteosarcoma arising in the maxilla, which was diagnosed 3 years after the primary excision and is very suggestive of malignant transformation in osteoblastoma. We present the radiological features, including computed tomographic and magnetic resonance imaging studies, of this unusual event of transformed tumor and compare imaging features of benign and dedifferentiated counterparts of this rare tumor complex.