Bone is a living tissue that is encased in a rigid, stress-bearing frame. Both individually and together as the skeleton of vertebrate creatures, bone provides the scaffolding upon which the body is constructed.

As bone is rigid, bone is subject to partial or total breakage and other types of damage. But bone has the capacity to repair such damage. The healing process is a dynamic balance between bone deposition, resorption and remodeling.

Bone damage takes several forms. A fracture, where bone is disrupted, is one class of bone damage. A fracture can be due to injury (traumatic fracture) or due to disease (pathologic or spontaneous fracture). Fractures can cause the broken part of the bone to pierce through the skin (open fracture), or the skin can remain intact (closed fracture).

Fractures can be further classified with respect to...