RESEARCH ARTICLE
TITANIUM ELASTIC NAIL - COMPLICATIONS IN THE TREATMENT OF PAEDIATRIC DIAPHYSEAL FRACTURE OF FEMUR§
Saikat Sarkar, Ranadeb Bandyopadhyay, Arindam Mukherjee*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
First Page: 12
Last Page: 17
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-7-12
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001307010012
Article History:
Received Date: 14/5/2012Revision Received Date: 9/12/2012
Acceptance Date: 16/12/2012
Electronic publication date: 16/1/2013
Collection year: 2013
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/) which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background:
Femoral shaft fracture is the most common major paediatric orthopaedic. For generations traction and casting was the standard treatment for all femoral shaft fractures in children. Over the past two decades the advantages of fixation and rapid mobilisation have been increasingly recognised.
Methods:
A prospective study was conducted in five private hospitals in the district of Bankura, West Bengal over a period of two years (April 2010 to March 2012) on 70 patients with closed shaft femur fractures between 6- 14 years age of either sex. The aim was to find out the short term complications of titanium elastic nailing in diaphyseal fracture of femur in children and compare the findings of this study with pre- existing studies in this field.
Results:
In our study the most common complication was pain at nail entry site (60%). 5.71% had local inflammatory reaction due to nails. Superficial infection occurred in 2.85%. At the end of 1 year, 2.85% had limb length discripancies. Proximal migration occurred in 2.85%. 2.85% encountered acute reactive synovitis, 5.71% developed angulation of fracture site and 2.85% developed per operative breakage of nail.
Conclusion:
The treatment of paediatric shaft femur fracture has been drastically changed over the last two decades to internal fixation by elastically stable intra- medullary nail (ESIN). In our study, we encountered only a few complications most of them being minor. Most of the complications were surgical technique related and were seen at the initial phase of the learning curve.
