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The winking owl sign

Dr MT Niknejad and Dr Roberto Schubert et al.

Spinal metastases are common in oncology patients. One of the most reliable signs of osteolytic spinal metastases on conventional radiographs is the loss of vertebral pedicle contours on AP views of the thoracic or lumbar spine. This sign of the absent pedicle has also been termed the winking owl sign, where the missing pedicle corresponds to the closed eye, the contralateral pedicle to the other open eye, and the spinous process to the beak of the animal^1&2.

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References

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1. Jacobs WB, Perrin RG. Evaluation and treatment of spinal metastases: an overview. Neurosurg Focus. 2001;11(6). Free pdf
2. Boos N, Aebi M (eds). Spinal disorders: Fundamentals of diagnosis and treatment. Springer Berlin (2008) ISBN-10: 3540405119. Read it at Google Books