1.A Review of Surgically Treated Distal Radius Fractures in a University Hospital
Bahar-Moni AS ; Wong SK ; Mohd-Shariff N ; Sapuan J ; Abdullah S
Malaysian Orthopaedic Journal 2021;15(No.3):52-57
Introduction: Distal radius fracture (DRF) is the most
common orthopaedic injury with a reported incidence of
17.5%. It is commonly seen in young males and elderly
females. Over the last two decades, there is an increasing
tendency to treat DRF surgically by open reduction and
internal fixation (ORIF) with plate and screws owing to
improved device design, better fixation and operative
technique. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the
demographic characteristics, type and method of fixation,
and outcome in all surgically treated DRF cases from 2014
to 2018 in a university hospital.
Materials and methods: A retrospective review of all
surgically treated DRF cases with one year follow-up in a
tertiary hospital in Malaysia was done. Patients who left the
follow-up clinic before one-year post-surgery or before
fracture union were excluded. A total of 82 patients with 88
DRF were finally included into the study and outcome in
terms of union time and need of multiple surgeries were
analysed along with the predictors.
Results: In this study, mean age of the patient was 46.2
years. Motor vehicle accident was the commonest cause of
the fracture and AO Type C fracture was the commonest
fracture type. Seventeen (19.3%) out of 88 fractures were
compound fracture. Open reduction and internal fixation
with volar plate was the most common surgical technique
done in this series (93.2%). Three (3.5%) out of 88 fractures
required multiple surgeries and eighty-three (94.3%) DRF
cases were united before nine months of the surgery in this
study. There was statistically significant association between
clinical type of the fracture and the union time (p-value
<0.05).
Conclusion: There was a 1.7:1 male-female ratio with AOC fracture being the most common type of fracture. The most
common method of fixation was ORIF with volar locked
plate. Patients with closed fractures have a higher rate of
union compared to open fractures at nine months.