Presentation
Incidental finding during imaging for blunt trauma to the knee.
Patient Data
There are no post-traumatic bony abnormalities of the right knee in a setting of minor blunt trauma to the knee (the patient fell onto his knee).
There are minor degenerative changes given the patient's age.
There is an unusual appreciation of the tibial epiphyseal scar, especially the medial tibia.
Case Discussion
An epiphyseal scar is the transverse radio-opaque band observed in the region of the growth plate following epiphyseal closure and fusion.
The epiphyseal scar is considered a marker of skeletal maturity, especially on radial age estimation.
In the past, It has been assumed that the band disappears after complete epiphyseal fusion. On this basis, the presence of an epiphyseal scar has been wrongly assumed to imply recent epiphyseal fusion. This example in a 70-year-old male patient and multiple quantitative research studies of the radial, femoral, and tibial epiphyseal scars have invalidated this assumption and proven that the obliteration of the epiphyseal scar is not dependent on chronological age and hence should not be used as an indicator of chronological age especially in forensic assessments 1.2.
Clinical relevance of the femoral epiphyseal scar 3: the femoral epiphyseal scar is used as a landmark for the extra-articular retrograde insertion of an intramedullary femoral nail and distal interlocking screw.
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