Fatigue / stress fracture

It is a fracture that occurs not because of a single violent injury but results from repeated stress. It is commonly seen in athletes and new military or police force recruits.

The pathology here is that the rate of microdamage from repeated stress exceeds the rate of repair. Thus there is accumulation of these microdamages and there is eventually a complete fracture across the full width of the bones.

Majority of stress fractures occurs in the bones of the lower limbs, notably the metatarsals. Other sites may be the shaft of the tibia or the neck of femur.

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