La fracture de fatigue du col fémoral chez le sportif d’endurance : l’importance d’un diagnostic précoce

Stress fractures of the femoral neck are rare traumatic events but they are far from being exceptional within the high level sportsmen community and even less rare within the military. The authors report the case of a 19 years old young man enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He came up with a right femoral neck stress fracture as a result of intense physical exercices. Although painful prodromic signs had been evolving for 15 days, the right diagnosis wasn’t made until the fracture moved to Garden III. The surgical treatment consisted in a reduction with a triple screwing of the femoral neck. One year later, the fracture was set to anatomic position, the hip function was normal and the femoral head showed no signs of osteonecrosis. The patient was then lost for further follow-up. When there has been no slipping, these fractures develop favourably with an ad integrum hip restoration. On the other hand, a secondary slipping leads to a pathology that has to be taken care of in a quite different way, with an often catastrophic outcome at the functional level. Nearly constant prodromic signs come in usefully for an early diagnosis. Secondary slipping of the femoral neck stress fractures should happen less frequently by an appropriate awareness campaign aimed at all the health professionals including sports trainers.