Bone disorders: a radiological approach

The radiological interpretation of bone and joint disease has emerged as a subspecialty in its own right. This chapter offers simple guidelines for the approach to a plain film examination that has been taken in a patient with a non-inflammatory arthritis. It does not discuss what films should be taken or when. Instead, it focuses on what to look for and where. Emphasis is placed on unusual features that may trigger the thought ‘This doesnʹt look like ordinary osteoarthritis.’ One does not know, of course, that the patient has an unusual cause of arthritis until the radiograph has been taken. Hence the radiographs of all patients deserve to be analysed properly, for only then will the unusual not become the undiagnosed.