Acute and chronic avulsive injuries

Abstract

Avulsive injuries are common traumatic lesions, especially in young athletes. They can be acute, resulting from excessive tensile forces, or chronic, due to overuse. Avulsion injuries can resemble osteomyelitis or neoplasm and, therefore, familiarity with the radiographic patterns as well as the different muscle attachments is helpful for the clinician to arrive at the correct diagnosis. This article discusses acute and chronic avulsive injuries in the pelvis, knee, elbow, shoulder, and foot.