Common Pediatric Fractures for Community Orthopaedic Specialists: Fix Them or Ship Them?

It is important to focus on common pediatric fractures seen in community emergency rooms, including supracondylar humerus, elbow, forearm, distal radius, and femoral shaft fractures, along with periarticular fractures around the knee and ankle in children. The principles of surgical and nonsurgical management of these fractures are based on the fracture type and age of the patient. The orthopaedic surgeon should be aware of important tips and tricks to help manage these injuries and be familiar with common complications that may occur when these injuries are encountered during trauma call.

Bilateral tibial tubercle sleeve fractures in a skeletally immature patient.

Tibial tubercle sleeve fracture is a rare injury. In concept, it is similar to the patellar sleeve fracture in a skeletally immature patient. We describe a unique case of simultaneous bilateral tibial tubercle sleeve fractures in a 12-year-old boy. Radiographs and MRI confirmed the injury. The patient underwent open surgical repair of bilateral sleeve fractures with suture anchor fixation. At the final followup, 3 years after his initial injury, the patient demonstrated full knee function bilaterally without radiographic evidence of growth disturbances.

Revision total hip arthroplasty using a modular femoral implant in Paprosky type III and IV femoral bone loss.

The purpose of this study was to compare results of patients with Paprosky type I and II femoral defects vs type IIIA, IIIB, and IV defects in patients undergoing revision hip arthroplasty. There were 64 patients in the group with type I and II defects with an average age of 68 years. There were 52 patients with Paprosky type IIIA, IIIB, and IV defects with an average age of 67 years. There were 8 intraoperative fractures in the type III and IV group, whereas there were 9 in the type I and II group. There were no differences between the 2 groups with respect to subsidence, loosening, dislocation, infection, and medical complications. Survivorship for the whole group was 96.9% at 5 years. Modular femoral implants provide several intraoperative options to restore leg length, offset, and stability despite femoral defects. We did not realize a higher failure rate in patients with type III or IV defects.