Fracture Type

Aka: Fracture Type, Fracture Description

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II. Types: General

  1. Background
    1. Describe the location (e.g. left wrist)
    2. Describe the imaging modality (e.g. AP and Lateral XRay)
  2. Pattern
    1. Avulsion Fracture
      1. Chip often attached to tendon or ligament
    2. Simple Fracture
      1. Fractured bone into 2 pieces
    3. Comminuted Fracture
      1. Multiple Fracture fragments (>2)
    4. Occult Fracture suspected
      1. Clinical condition suggests a Fracture
      2. However not easily seen on exam or diagnostics
  3. Is the skin completely intact over the Fracture?
    1. Closed Fracture
    2. Open Fracture (Compound Fracture)
      1. Fracture exposed via open wound in the skin
  4. Pathologic Causes
    1. Stress Fracture (Fatigue Fracture)
      1. Fracture from repeated minor stresses
    2. Pathologic Fracture
      1. Fracture secondary to bone weakening
      2. Suggests an underlying disease process (e.g. malignancy)
    3. Insufficiency Fracture
  5. Healing deformities (old Fractures)
    1. Malunion
    2. Nonunion

III. Types: Descriptions of Fracture Positioning

  1. Fracture line description
    1. See Intraarticular Fracture (Epiphyseal Fracture)
    2. Transverse Fracture
    3. Oblique Fracture
    4. Spiral Fracture
    5. Impacted Fracture
    6. Segmental Fracture
      1. Two Fractures in long bone
    7. Greenstick Fracture
      1. Incomplete Fracture where one cortex remains intact
      2. Often seen in children
    8. Torus Fracture (buckle Fracture)
      1. Cortex compressed with a buckling of periosteum
      2. Most common in child's distal radius
  2. Fracture deformity or displacement
    1. Alignment
      1. Rotational or angular position
    2. Apposition
      1. Amount of end to end Fracture contact
    3. Displacement (Translation)
      1. Contact between Fracture fragments is translated (anterior, posterior, medial, lateral)
    4. Angulation
      1. Angle formed between the Fracture fragments
      2. Apex orientation may also be described (anterior, posterior, medial, lateral)
    5. Rotation
      1. Distal bone fragment is rotated in relation to the proximal fragment (e.g. external or internal rotation)

IV. Resources

  1. Fracture (Radiopaedia)
    1. https://radiopaedia.org/articles/fracture-1

V. References

  1. Ouellette and Tetreault (2015) Clinical Radiology, Medmaster, Miami, p. 68-9

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