The description of pubic apophysitis in response to chronic stress in a consecutive retrospective series of 26 male adolescent football players1 is a welcome addition to the literature of a previously under-recognised entity that until now has probably been regarded as ‘osteitis pubis’. However several questions arise.

All 26 players had plain pelvic radiographs and approximately one-third each had either ultrasound, CT scan or MRI scan in addition to the plain radiograph. The radiologists involved in this publication are described as being involved with the comparison group of 31 individuals free from groin injury, all had CT scans and were performed at two different hospitals in France and Australia (not at the hospital at which the diagnostic survey was performed). But did …