J Korean Fract Soc.  1998 Oct;11(4):825-832.

Surgical Treatment of Ipsilateral Fracture of the Femur and Tibia("Floating Knee")

• Chung ES
• Hong KS
• Hwang SS

Abstract

Ipsilateral fractures of the femur and tibia is also called "Floating knee", It is the term applied to the flail knee joint segment resulting from a fracture of the shaft or adjacent metaphysis of the ipsilateral femur and tibia. The principles of the treatment is focussed to the rigid fixation and early restoration of the knee function. Authors reviewed 24 patient in which were treated surgical management from January 1991 to June 1998. The results were as following : 1. The patient who had both diaphyseal fractures had better clinical result than metaphyseal fractures. And the metaphyseal fractures associated with intraarticular fractures were worse than other metaphyseal fractures. 2. At the last follow up, the excellent and good results were achieved in 71% of the patients treated with internal fixation of both fractures and 60% of the patient with external fixation of the tibia, but all of the patient with wxternal fixation of the femur were poor result by Karlstrom and Olerud criteria.

Keyword

Ipsilateral Fracture of the Femur and Tibia; Floating Knee

MeSH Terms

Femur*
Follow-Up Studies
Humans
Intra-Articular Fractures
Knee
Knee Joint
Tibia