The cases of nineteen patients with sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis
were reviewed retrospectively. Of particular interest were the responses to
antibiotics and prostaglandin inhibitors. The prostaglandin inhibitors
relieved the pain within three to four weeks in sixteen of eighteen
patients so treated. However, the inhibitors gradually became less
effective in most patients. Oral antibiotics were more effective than the
inhibitors in relieving the pain of eight of the eleven patients who were
given antibiotics. Pustulosis palmaris and plantaris, commonly associated
with sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis, diminished after antibiotic
therapy, as did the chest pain in most patients. The similarities between
the age and sex distributions and the responses to antibiotics of the
patients with sternocostoclavicular hyperostosis and those with pustulosis
suggest that these disorders have a common etiology, and that the
pustulosis may be a so-called bacterid reaction and the hyperostosis, a
manifestation of a systemic reaction to a focal infection.