Leontiasis ossea, also known as leontiasis, lion face or lion face syndrome, is a rare medical condition, characterized by an overgrowth of the

facial A facial is a family of skin care treatments for the face, including steam, exfoliation (physical and chemical), extraction, creams, lotions, facial masks, peels, and massage. They are normally performed in beauty salons, but are also a com ...

and

cranial Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position pro ...

bones. It is not a disease in itself, but a symptom of other diseases, including Paget's disease,

fibrous dysplasia Fibrous dysplasia is a disorder where normal bone and marrow is replaced with fibrous tissue, resulting in formation of bone that is weak and prone to expansion. As a result, most complications result from fracture, deformity, functional impairme ...

hyperparathyroidism Hyperparathyroidism is an increase in parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels in the blood. This occurs from a disorder either within the parathyroid glands (primary hyperparathyroidism) or as response to external stimuli (secondary hyperparathyroidism). ...

and

renal osteodystrophy Renal osteodystrophy/adynamic bone disease is currently defined as an alteration of bone morphology in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). It is one measure of the skeletal component of the systemic disorder of chronic kidney disease-mine ...

. The common form is that in which one or other

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...

is affected, its size progressively increasing, and thus encroaching on the cavities of the orbit, the mouth, the nose and its accessory sinuses.

Exophthalmos Exophthalmos (also called exophthalmus, exophthalmia, proptosis, or exorbitism) is a bulging of the eye anteriorly out of the orbit. Exophthalmos can be either bilateral (as is often seen in Graves' disease) or unilateral (as is often seen in ...

gradually develops, going on later to a complete loss of sight due to compression of the

optic nerve In neuroanatomy, the optic nerve, also known as the second cranial nerve, cranial nerve II, or simply CN II, is a paired cranial nerve that transmits visual system, visual information from the retina to the brain. In humans, the optic nerve i ...

by the overgrowth of bone. There may also be interference with the nasal

respiration Respiration may refer to: Biology * Cellular respiration, the process in which nutrients are converted into useful energy in a cell ** Anaerobic respiration, cellular respiration without oxygen ** Maintenance respiration, the amount of cellul ...

and with the taking of food. In the somewhat less common form of this rare disease the overgrowth of bone affects all the cranial bones as well as those of the face, the senses being lost one by one and death finally resulting from cerebral pressure. There is no treatment other than exposing the overgrown bone, and chipping away pieces, or excising entirely where possible. __TOC__

Great Sphinx

Surgeon Hutan Ashrafian from Imperial College London has analysed the

Great Sphinx The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human, and the body of a lion. Facing directly from west to east, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, E ...

to identify that it may have represented an individual suffering from

prognathism Prognathism, also called Habsburg jaw or Habsburgs' jaw primarily in the context of its prevalence amongst members of the House of Habsburg, is a positional relationship of the mandible or maxilla to the skeletal base where either of the jaws pr ...

which may have been a reflection of a disease suffered by the sculpture's human inspiration. Furthermore, as the Sphinx represented a lion, the same person may have suffered from leontiasis ossea.

References

* * {{cite journal , title=Uremic leontiasis ossea: "bighead" disease in humans? Radiologic, clinical, and pathologic features , journal=Radiology , date=April 1996 , volume=199 , issue=1, pages=233–240 , doi=10.1148/radiology.199.1.8633151 , pmid=8633151 , author=Lee VS, Webb MS Jr, Martinez S, McKay CP, Leight GS Jr Skeletal disorders Rare diseases Syndromes with craniofacial abnormalities Great Sphinx of Giza

Great Sphinx

See also

References