Abstract

• Fatigue fracture are commonly seen in military personnel, especially at basic training c enter, and have been noted in athletes, ballet dancers, laborers, and even pregnant woman.
  This type of injury is usually encountered in the metatarsal shaft. however in rare cases. fatigue fracture in the femoral shaft was reporied.
  The purpose of this article is to call attention to the impouanre of early diagnosis of fatigue fracture of the shaft of the femur so that displacement, which may lead to the necessity for surgical intervention, may be prevented.
  The following clinical results were obtained by analysis of 6 cases of femoral fatigue fractures experienced in the departmert of orthopedic surgery, Capital Armed Forces General Hospital from January 1993 to April 1996.
  1. A series off femoral fatigue fractures are reported in the miliiary recruits.
  2. The average age was 21 years and all patients sex were male.
  3. All the patients were peculiarly army recruits, whose average body heights were 170.3 centimeters and body weights were 61.6 Kilograms.
  4. All the patients had previously led a sedentary life styie, with very little physical activity of any kind, including walking.
  5. The site of predilection in the femoral shaft was distal one-third, occuring in 5(83.3%) of the cases. The site of other one case was middle one-third of the shaft.
  6. The main cause of the fatigue fractures was marching on hard roads, and other cause was playing football.
  7. Most of femoral fatigue fractures were classified as grade II, showing periosteal readion on both cortices.
  8. All soldiers were treated by immediate stoppage of physical activity, with no plaster immobilization except a displaced fatigue fracture.
• Key words: Femoral shaft, Fatigue fracture

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