Do healed fractures show up on xrays?

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asked Dec 12, 2021 in Other- Health by Olayolayolay (940 points)
Do healed fractures show up on xrays?

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answered Dec 12, 2021 by Marlene99 (7,810 points)
Healed fractures can show up on Xrays and even old fractures can show up on xrays.

The break of a freshly broken bone will show up as a black “crack” on the x-ray showing where the bone was broken.

When the fracture has healed, the healed bone has greater density than the unbroken bone and will show up in the same place, but white.

In any case, the healed bone will show up on x-rays for the rest of your life.

They have found healed bones in Egyptian mummies when they were x-rayed, so the broken bones will still show up two thousand years after your death.

Also the colors may be reversed depending on the use (or not) of digital processing.

Most of the time the bone remodels so that in 10 years it’s not possible to see where a fracture occurred.

In situations where the bony anatomy is not restored close to normal alignment this can lead to a mal union and can be detected years later.

Sometimes the healing process may leave a callus which is extra bone growth around a complex fracture which will show up in an XRAY long after the injury.

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