ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:There are more literature reports about the floating shoulder injury in recent years, but there stil have obvious controversies about the treatment of the floating shoulder injury. Whether choose the conservative treatment or operative treatment is an important issue in face of every clinician. OBJECTIVE:To review the clinical features and present treatment situation of the floating shoulder injury. METHODS: A computer-based online search was performed in the PubMed and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database for the clinical research papers on the treatment methods of the floating shoulder injury from January 1975 to August 2015. The key words were floating shoulder injury, diagnose, treatment method. The articles published earlier and repetitive researches were excluded. Finaly, 33 articles were included for further analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:(1) Floating shoulder injury is a kind of severe shoulder injury which is caused by high energy and violence. It is often complicated with severe systemic injury, which should be paid more attention in clinic. (2) The treatment of floating shoulder injury has been controversial, and there is no standard treatment guideline. Conservative treatment and operative treatment can get good outcomes. There are less reports about conservative treatment of the floating shoulder injury in recent years. The outcome of operative treatment may better than conservative treatment. (3) Conservative or simple clavicle fixation can be used for fractures without displacement or with smal displacement. Obviously displaced fractures can be treated with simple clavicle fixation or double fixation of clavicle and scapula, which may have good repair effects.