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Study probes stress fractures in women by Dick Peterson Public Relations Not long after women were admitted to The Citadel Corp of Cadets, some of them became real stand-outs.    They stood out the Friday afternoon parades.   They stood aside while the rest of their company double-timed.   During sports competition, where company unity hung in the balance, the pain of pelvic stress fractures out-screamed even their squad corporals.   To orthopaedic surgeon Jack Otteni, M.D., that called for a research study into factors that led to stress fractures in some women and not others. And what about women at the College of Charleston? Are they suffering from stress fractures too?   Otteni is into year two of what he hopes will be extended to a four-year funded study comparing the orthopaedic events of Citadel women to their undergraduate counterparts at the College of Charleston.    With orthopaedists William Barfield, M.D., and Angus McBryde, M.D., he has recruited 15 College of Charleston volunteers and 20 at The Citadel to track factors related to increased risk of stress fractures, including hormone levels, bone density, menstrual dysfunction, eating disorders, exercise habits, birth control pills and nutritional supplements. Using their physical status during the first month at school as a baseline, Otteni evaluates each of them at six-month intervals.   “We hope to find significant differences,” he said, referring to the increased physical requirements for students at The Citadel.   A stress fracture is a break in a bone caused by repetitive sub-threshold stresses.    That’s the definition. Otteni explains it this way: Bone is able to withstand a measured amount of stress without breaking. Given time, the stressed bone will heal and may even strengthen. But repetitive stress without time to heal—the overuse stress that may come from constant running—can result in an eventual break.   The College of Charleston women are Otteni's control group. Because their physical activity is less enforced and more varied, he can compare them to women at The Citadel whose activity is much more rigorous and repetitive. He hopes the study will yield information to decrease injuries, not only among The Citadel’s female knobs, but among female athletes-in-training.   “Women are at a higher risk for injury in other environments as well,” Otteni said.  “I expect to add still more volunteers to the study this year, which should help us identify those more at risk for stress fractures.”