Imaging anatomy of the ankle.

The purpose of this short review is to give an overview of the normal imaging anatomy of the ankle and the foot, required to understand pathologic conditions. The anatomy of the ankle and foot reflects the specific needs of the complex biomechanics of walking and running. Therefore, a short discussion of the biomechanics will precede the description of the ankle anatomy. For didactical reasons, the anatomic structures of the ankle and foot will be divided into medial, lateral, anterior and posterior compartments to help the reader conceptualise the particularly complex anatomy, and to describe the different structures in relation to each other. In a the second part the normal variants, which should not be interpreted as pathologic changes, will be discussed.