Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on . Results presented at the Virtual EFORT Congress showed an increase in the occurrence of osteophytes and decrease ... Bone spurs, or osteophytes, are extra growths of bone tissue that appear like smooth lumps on the outsides of your bones.

Understanding the Context

They’re common and they often don’t cause any problems. Bone spurs (also called osteophytes) are smooth, hard bumps of extra bone that form on the ends of bones. They often pop up in the joints -- the places where two bones meet. Bone spurs are bony growths that form along bone edges.

Key Insights

They're also called osteophytes. Bone spurs often form where bones meet each other — in the joints. They also can form on the bones of the spine. The main cause of bone spurs is the joint damage linked with the most common type of arthritis. This is called osteoarthritis.

Final Thoughts

Osteophytes, or bone spurs, are bony outgrowths that can develop around joints. Osteophytes are often linked to osteoarthritis, a type of "wear-and-tear arthritis" that occurs with age. Osteophytes themselves are not painful, but they can cause pain if they press on muscles or nerves. Osteophytes are exostoses (bony projections) that form along joint margins. [1] They are distinct from enthesophytes, which are bony projections that form at the attachment of a tendon or ligament. [2] The medical terms for bone spurs are osteophytes and enthesophytes.

Both osteophytes and enthesophytes are projections on a bone where excess bone tissue has grown, usually as a reaction to an ongoing arthritic process. In this article, we’ll explain what osteophytes are, how they form, and why they sometimes cause problems. We’ll also introduce a promising non-surgical treatment called Discseel that may help prevent the spinal degeneration that leads to osteophytes.