Abstract
We examind the femoral shaft fractures in children with external fixation devices in an effort to prevent malunion, speed up early recovery and discharge.
The researchers followed up on 8 patients with 9 femoral fractures for a 6 month period after removal of the external fixators.
Patient ages ranged from 3 years old to 10 years old with a mean age of 6.9 years oid. Six were male and two were female.
All procedures were performed under general anesthesia. The technique involved is used to reduce fractures as much as possible, end to end, on the traction table and fix it with an external fixation device. No other external fixation devices were employed postoperatively. The weight bearing time began when the patient was relieved of pain. The time ranged from 5 weeks to 13 weeks with a mean time of 9.6 weeks.
In all cases, except for the one case in which the fixator had been removed as mentioned above, the bending was within 5°, which is a good reduction position. In addition, all the cases had no limitations in the excursion of knee and hip. Leg length discrepancy was within 5mm in all cases.
The use of external fixation devices in the management of femoral shaft fractures in children ensures fine reduction position/alignment and early ROM, and is therefore considered as an effective method.
