Stress fracture of the tarsal navicular: two unusual case reports

Stress fractures of the tarsal navicular are an uncommon entity in podiatric and orthopedic literature, being reported only 40 times. These cases were usually in the younger, active patient population. The cases reported in this paper were older individuals that were inactive. Both cases were originally misdiagnosed, but later shown to be stress fractures, one being the only hypertrophic nonunion recorded to date. The authors believe the stress-fractured navicular is often misdiagnosed, and probably more common than recently reported.