Osteomalacia & Rickets

Osteomalacia and rickets are two faces of the same disease of defective mineralisation of the bone matrix (osteoid). When mineralisation fails before epiphyseal fusion it produces rickets (a disease of the growing skeleton, affecting both growth plate and bone); when it fails after growth plate closure it produces osteomalacia (soft adult bone). The commonest cause worldwide is vitamin D deficiency, and the unifying …