Acute calcific discitis in adults.

Acute calcific discitis in the pediatric population is a well-described entity and may rarely involve the adult population. Acute calcific discitis does occur in adults, presenting clinically with the abrupt onset of severe back pain with a classic radiographic calcification of the disc similar to that of a discogram; it resolves with nonsurgical symptomatic treatment. To our knowledge, no cases of "idiopathic" adult calcific discitis have been reported in the orthopedic literature. We report 2 adult patients with symptomatic thoracic disc calcifications that closely resemble those observed in children and briefly discuss the relevant clinical and radiographic features, along with a review of the literature.