A young soccer player with an unusual presentation of an inclusion cyst: A case report

R eports on post-traumatic cyst-like lesions in childhood are scarce in the orthopaedic literature. These lesions do not have major clinical importance, but proper identification and differential diagnosis are essential. They typically present as an incidental finding on follow-up radiographs of a greenstick fracture of the distal radius and ulna, which facilitates the diagnosis and avoids overinvestigation. A comprehensive review of the literature yielded only 20 previously reported cases of transient post-traumatic cysts. In contrast with this case report, all were associated with an underlying greenstick fracture. We report a cyst-like lesion of the distal tibia, which was atypical in its presentation in that no underlying fracture was diagnosed. The only traumatic event in this skeletally immature patient’s history was an ankle sprain.