高齢者大腿骨頚部骨傷の MRI による検討

MR imaging is useful in the diagnosis of occult fractures and bone bruises. MR imaging at an early stage after injury was performed in 17 elderly patients with a clinical suspicion of hip fracture who had normal radiograms. Ten patients had positive findings on the MR imaging. In these ten patients, follow-up radiograms were taken three months later, and we compared early-stage MR images and radiographic findings at three months. Three patients showed geographic areas of low intensity on T1 and high intensity on T2-weighted images, also referred to as bone bruise, but one of them had osteosclerotic findings in radiograms. Seven patients showed linear areas on T1 or T2-weighted images. One of them received compression hip screw because of the displacement of the fracture. Three showed osteosclerotic findings and the other three showed normal findings in radiograms. Our results suggested that MR imaging at an early stage of the injury was useful to detect occult fractures and bone bruises; however, differentiation between the two was difficult.