Abstract
If a patient has a nonunion but is asymptomatic, no treatment is needed. However, if the patient remains in pain and radiography shows no union after three months, surgical intervention may be necessary. The nonunion rate for radial head fractures is low and there are a few reports that describe various treatments for nonunion of the radial head, including radial head excision, internal fixation with bone graft and radial head replacement. However, there have been no reports in which nonunion of the radial head was treated with a pedicled vascularized bone graft. We describe the case of a 73-year-old female with nonunion of the radial head, that was treated with a pedicled reverse-flow osteocutaneous lateral arm flap transfer. The flap successfully survived and bone union was obtained at an early stage, so we conclude that pedicled reverse-flow osteocutaneous lateral arm flap transfer is a useful option for treatment of nonunion of the radial head.
