Unusual osteonecrosis of the femur, tibia and fibula in an adult patient with a complex cyanotic congenital heart disease

Bone infarcts: Unsuspected gray areas?

“…Anecdotal case reports frequently describe bone infarcts as rare or very rare, and only about 25 cases have been reported over the last 25 years [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Obviously, few cases will be deemed worthy of publication, and the literature therefore provides no information on prevalence.…”

“…However, it undoubtedly constitutes an underestimation, since the cases were identified manually, as the ICD-9 has no specific code for bone infarcts. The cases are distributed equally between males and females, and most of the patients are 25 to 50 years of age [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

“…They included fewer than 20 patients and were published many years ago, with the most recent -to the best of our knowledge -having been reported in 1990 [3][4][5][6]. Furthermore, the few relatively recent publications are anecdotal case reports [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] that fail to shed new light on the topic. We recently identified 109 cases in 31 patients that, when combined with our earlier case series reported in 1990, provide updated information on bone infarction.…”