Bilateral pathologic femoral shaft fractures

Bilateral femoral shaft fractures are infrequent but have been reported after major trauma and with accompanying trauma in other areas of the body. (1-3) Fractures of long bone shafts after minimal trauma have been reported rarely in the orthopedic literature (4-6) and more recently in the geriatric literature, (7-9) but they usually occur in a single bone at one time. In this article, we present and discuss an unusual case of bilateral femoral fractures in an elderly nursing home resident who denied falling. She had no evidence of Paget's disease or cancer, but did have osteopenia, most likely caused by disuse osteoporosis.