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Bamberger-Marie disease

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A syndrome characterised by clubbing of the fingers (Hippocratic fingers) and toes, periosteal new bone growth mainly in the long bones of the extremities, frequent evidence of joint involvement, and marked vasomotor disturbances involving hands and feet. It occurs in association with pulmonary disease such as bronchogenic carcinoma, occasional bronchiectasia, or lung abscesses. The syndrome is more common before middle life, and occurs more frequently in males.

Already 2300 years before Bamberger and Marie accounted for their findings Hippocrates in his book of prognoses had established that drumstick-fingers were a sign of severe disease in the lungs. The syndrome was first described by Nikolaus Friedreich in brothers Karl and Wilhelm Hagner, hence the synonym Hagner syndrome. A familial form of this syndrome is known as Mankowsky's syndrome.

Von Bamberger in 1889 described the condition in detail and pointed out the relationship of such clubbing to diseases of the heart and lungs. Marie in 1890 differentiated the syndrome from acromegaly.

Bibliography

  • N. Friedreich:
    Hyperostose des gesamten Skeletts.
    [Virchows] Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medicin, Berlin, 1868, 16: 83-87.
  • E. von Bamberger:
    Veränderungen der Röhrenknochen bei Bronchiektasie.
    Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 1889, 2: 226. Über Knochenveränderungen bei chronischen Lungen- und Herzkrankheiten.
    Zeitschrift für Klinische Medicin, Berlin, 1891, 18: 193-217.
  • P. Marie:
    De l’osteo-arthropathie hypertrophiante pneumique.
    Rév Med, Paris, 1890, 10: 1-36.
  • H. Kuhlewein:
    Hyppocratis opera quae feruntur omnia. Leipzig, 1894-1902.

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