Introduction:

The aneurysmal bone cyst (ABC) has a variety of clinical and imaging characteristics. There is little information regarding the possible relationship between some of these characteristics and its histopathological patterns. The aim of this review was to analyze the clinical, epidemiology and imaging characteristics of ABC cases, and determine what characteristics might be related to some type of histopathological pattern of ABC in the craniofacial territory.

Materials and methods:

A search was conducted for ABC cases in the craniofacial territory published since 2000, on PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science, by searching ("Aneurysmal bone cyst") AND ("Skull" OR "Jaw" OR "Mandible" OR "Maxilla"). Cases had to have histopathological, clinical, epidemiological, and imaging information.

Review:

40 articles with 41 ABC lesions were included, with 34 being classic pattern and 7 mixed-solid (M-S). The M-S pattern was mostly painless and in males, while the classic pattern, with associated pain was mostly in females. Regarding imaging, the M-S pattern was without defined-corticated limits and with bone perforation more frequently than the classic pattern.

Conclusions:

Histopathological patterns of ABC have similar clinical, epidemiological and imaging characteristics. However, they differ in sex, associated pain, defined-corticated limits and bone perforation, which would allow the diagnosis to be directed towards a specific histopathological pattern.

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