In the March 1, 2017 edition of The Journal, Eliezer et al. report on their experience managing femoral fractures in a major treatment center in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, one of many low-resource locations around the world.
The authors tracked one-year outcomes for 331 femoral fractures in 329 patients. The vast majority of those fractures were treated with intramedullary nails, with open reduction and without intraoperative imaging. The actual reoperation rate for nails was 3.4%, with infection being the most common reason for reoperation.
Eliezer et al. also found that the factors most strongly associated with reoperation were proximal fractures with varus coronal alignment, small nail diameter (8 mm vs larger diameters), and a Winquist type-3 fracture pattern (comminution that included 50% to 75% of the femoral shaft).
Road-traffic accidents are the major cause of disability and loss of work productivity in the developing world among the young, economically productive segments of society. Through the support of organizations like SIGN Fracture Care International, local surgeons in low-resource countries have been able to treat patients who’ve sustained diaphyseal long bone fractures safely and with good functional outcomes. Carefully conducted follow-up studies such as this one give data-driven reassurance to everyone who supports these efforts that surgery can be safely conducted with good patient outcomes.
Performing intramedullary fixation allows early weight bearing and joint motion to limit muscle atrophy and joint stiffness. As long as we can be assured that these procedures have acceptably low rates of reoperation and patient morbidity, we can more confidently encourage the expansion of these programs in the developing world. Organizations like SIGN deserve our support in this regard.
Marc Swiontkowski, MD
JBJS Editor-in-Chief
