Insufficiency fractures of the tibial plateau.

An insufficiency fracture of the tibial plateau may be the cause of knee pain in patients with osteoporosis. The diagnosis is usually not suspected until a bone scan is done, as initial radiographs are often negative or inconclusive and clinical findings are nonspecific and may simulate osteoarthritis or spontaneous. In five of 165 patients referred for bone scans due to nontraumatic knee pain, a characteristic pattern of intense augmented uptake of radionuclide confined to the tibial plateau led to a presumptive diagnosis of insufficiency fracture, later confirmed on radiographs.