fracture
Meaning of fracture: A break and a fracture are the same event, and the choice of word reflects vocabulary rather than how serious the injury is.
Definition of fracture
A fracture is a break in a bone, ranging from a hairline crack that barely separates the surfaces to a bone shattered into several pieces. It may follow a single large force, repeated smaller loads, or an ordinary movement acting on bone already weakened by disease. Fractures are named by their pattern, their position in the bone, and whether the overlying skin is broken.
How are fractures described?
By the line the break takes through the bone, by how many pieces result, and by how far those pieces have moved apart. A break running straight across behaves differently from one spiraling around the shaft, because the forces producing them differ and so does the stability of the pieces once they are back in place. Position is recorded too, since a break through the shaft, through the flared end of a bone and through a growth plate in a child all heal on different terms.
| Pattern | What it means |
|---|---|
| Transverse | The line runs straight across the bone |
| Oblique | The line runs at an angle across the shaft |
| Spiral | The line winds around the shaft, from a twisting force |
| Comminuted | The bone is broken into more than two pieces |
| Greenstick | The bone bends and cracks on one side only, seen in children |
| Avulsion | A tendon or ligament pulls a fragment of bone away |
What makes a fracture open?
A wound over the break that puts bone in contact with the outside world. The bone end may have pierced the skin from within, or an object may have broken through from without. Either way the fracture is described as open, formerly compound, and infection becomes a dominant concern alongside the break itself. A closed fracture can look far more dramatic on an image while carrying less of that risk. Restoring the pieces to position, called reduction, may be achieved by manipulation from outside or through an operation.
When does bone break under little force?
When the bone is weaker than the load rather than the load being large. Thinning of bone in osteoporosis is the commonest reason, and a fall from standing height that would once have raised a bruise instead breaks the wrist, the hip or a bone in the spine. A break through bone already damaged by a tumor, an infection or a cyst is a pathologic fracture. Repeated ordinary loading of otherwise normal bone produces a stress fracture, which begins as microscopic damage accumulating faster than it is repaired.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
Imaging confirmed a fracture through the shaft of the long bone.
Good to know
Fracture and break describe the same injury, and how serious one is depends on the pattern, the position and whether the skin is open rather than on which of the two words is used.
Word origin
Where “fracture” comes from
From the Latin fractura, a break, built on frangere, to break. The same verb gives fragment and fragile.