I'm fairly certain fractures leave scarred bone, areas of calcification that would show up in x-rays.
Here is what I was talking about earlier. It sounds to me like after all these years they would have healed over.
13 Q Would you draw any conclusions from that
14 how old the ossification was?
15 A You could say that it wasn't real old,
16 because typically, as we mentioned, the bone is a
17 dynamic structure, and it's constantly being
18 remodeled normally. So the body tends to take away
19 extra bone eventually to remodel it to look like
20 normal bone. So typically old bone injuries are
21 remodeled so that eventually they may almost
22 disappear, particularly in young people. In the
23 very young, a fracture you won't even see in three
24 or four years, it will be totally erased.
7 Q Is this compression fracture, then, in
8 common parlance, a broken back?
9 A Yes.
10 Q Is there any way to tell how old that
11 fracture would be?
12 A Well, as I've alluded to, the bone scan
13 gives some suggestion of that.
14 Q More recent rather than less recent?
15 A Correct. Typically in trauma the rule of
16 thumb is that a traumatic fracture is not active on
17 the bone scan after 12 to 18 months.