Osseus abnormalities are very common in response to an abnormal chronic repetitive stress when applied in healthy bone. That is known as bone stress injury and represents a wide spectrum of diseases, among which is tibial stress injury, also known as “shin splints”. This type of lesions are common in athletes (about 10 % of injuries seen in sports medicine) affecting the tibia, tarsal bones, metatarsals, femur and fibula, in order of decreasing frequency, but also occurs in non-athlete people. The repetitive stress causes accelerated...

We have reviewed retrospectively 4 patients, with a total of eight tibias. All MRI examinations were performed on 1.5 Tesla MR (Intera and Achieva, Philips Medical Systems) using a phased array coil. Gadolinium was not necessary. The patients were positioned in a supine neutral position. Both tibias were imaged regardless of symptoms. Axial T1W (TR/TE 500/18; NEX 2; matrix 468 x 252; slice thickness5 mm; FOV 400 x 200 x293 mm) and T2W FSE (TR/TE 4024/30; NEX 2; matrix 432 x 139; slice thickness 6...

Our four patients presented with selective pain and tenderness with MRI alterations. One of them complaint of bilateral pain with bilateral afectation by MRI. We have considered the patients that presented a signal alteration on the pretibial region. T2W-FSE with fat supression and STIR images showed a hyperintensity on the anteromedial surface of the tibia, affecting the soft tissue adjacent to periosteum, which means periosteal edema (fig 1). All of them affected at middle region of the tibia. In general, T1W imaging was able to...

1. Tibial stress injury is a spectrum of osseus abnormalities caused by chronic stress on healthy bone. 2. MR imaging allows depiction of edema. The most frequent imaging finding is the periosteal edema, which is a useful marker for stress injury. Also usually bone marrow edema may be seen. The presence of cortical injury is easily revealed on T2W and STIR sequences. 3. So nowadays, MRI is the gold standard technique, being a very sensitive tool for detecting edema. 4. But MRI´s low specifity requires...

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