We report a rare case of a suspected stress fracture of the sternum. A 14 year-old male, baseball player had acute anterior chest pain after performing trunk stretching exercises. For several days he was not able to play baseball, so consulted a private orthopaedic hospital. Pathologic findings were noted on the X-p film and the doctor advised him to visit our department. X-p images and Tomogram showed a transverse fracture in the sternum, and 3-D CT showed an irregular fracture line.
We also suspected a bone, cyst and planned a biopsy. However the X-p, CT, and 3-D CT findings did'nt show typical signs of a bone cyst, and there were no reports of bone cyst in the previous literature, so we diagnosed it as a stress fracture and advised him to decrease his daily activity and stop playing baseball. He progressively improved over 3 to 4 months on our conservative management and then was able to return to playing baseball.
Cases with these fractures are very rare with only a few reported in the literature.
