3 ways to tell if a fracture non-union is stable without imaging

This episode comes from a discussion I called with a runner who called me for a second opinion. She had a stress fracture non-union and somebody had remained recommended that she have surgery.  I was looking at her CT scan and she asked me an interesting question.  She said,  “Does it look stable?”  And I said, “Can't tell.”  It looks like a non-union. It looks like it’s broken and never healed. What are the three ways you could tell whether or not a metatarsal fracture non-union is stable without getting an imaging study?  Well, that's what we're talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.