Bone Stress Injuries

This unit outlines basic MRI protocols for evaluating the most common bone stress injuries including those of the tibia, femoral neck, femoral shaft, metatarsal, and navicular bone. The protocols concentrate on the lower extremity, as the majority of stress injures occur in this region. These protocols were developed using a 1.5 T system (Signa, General Electric Medical Systems). However, the sequences described could be adapted to low- or mid-field scanners using STIR (short tau inversion recovery) sequences to acquire the T2-weighted images. This technique would thus require longer scan times and lower resolution matrices.