Abstract
The standard treatment for femoral shaft fractures in preschool children is casting or traction. In this report, we present a case of femoral shaft fracture in a preschool child treated with the elastic nailing technique. The patient was a 4-year-old boy with a history of pervasive developmental disorder. He was brought to our hospital by ambulance after falling out of a second-story window at his house. He suffered severe head injury and a right femoral shaft fracture. We performed emergency surgery and treated the right femoral fracture by elastic nailing with a 2.4-mm Kirschner wire under general anesthesia. He started gait training at 4 weeks after surgery. Three months after surgery, we performed cranioplasty and removed the Kirschner wire from the right femur under general anesthesia. He had no leg length discrepancy or gait abnormality at 10 months after surgery. In this case, considering the benefit of patient management in an intensive care unit, we performed elastic nailing for the femoral shaft fracture. As a result, the patientʼs general condition improved rapidly and he started gait training at an early date. In conclusion, we recommend using elastic nailing for femoral shaft fractures in preschool children with head injury.
