Free
E-newsletter
Subscribe to Housecall
Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date
on a wide variety of health topics.
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Tests and diagnosis
By Mayo Clinic staffImaging scans are crucial to the diagnosis of a broken wrist or broken hand.
X-rays
Using low levels of radiation, X-rays are a good tool to visualize bone. But X-rays sometimes have problems revealing fractures where the bone is merely cracked. X-rays are painless and take only a few minutes to complete.
Computerized tomography (CT)
CT scans can often uncover wrist or hand fractures that X-rays might miss. Injuries to soft tissues and blood vessels also are easier to see on CT scans. This technology takes X-rays from a variety of angles and combines them to depict cross-sectional slices of your body's internal structures. The test is painless and usually takes less than 20 minutes.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
MRI uses radio waves and a powerful magnet to produce detailed images of bone and soft tissues. It is much more sensitive than X-rays and can identify very small fractures and ligament injuries. The procedure is painless, but some people feel claustrophobic in the narrow tunnel within the MRI machine.
Bone scan
This technique is good for identifying stress fractures, where a bone is cracked due to repetitive trauma. During a bone scan, a small amount of radioactive material is injected into your bloodstream. It collects in the bones, particularly in places where a bone is healing, and is detected by a scanner.
- Petron DJ, et al. Distal radius fractures in adults. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed June 2, 2011.
- Hand fractures. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00010. June 2, 2011.
- Anderson BC. Evaluation of the adult patient with wrist pain. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed June 2, 2011.
- Wrist fractures. American Society for Surgery of the Hand. http://www.assh.org/Public/HandConditions/Pages/WristFractures.aspx. Accessed June 2, 2011.
- Scaphoid fracture of the wrist. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00012. Accessed June 2, 2011.
- Lewiecki EM. Prevention of osteoporosis. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed June 2, 2011.
Find Mayo Clinic on