Operative Treatment of Femoral Shaft Fracture in Adult: Compression Plate Versus Intramedullary Nailing for Femoral Shaft Fracture

Park, Sang Won; Lee, Soon Hyuk; Oh, Jong Keon

Abstract

The authors studied 54 patients (55 cases) of femoral shaft fractures treated by compression plate fixation and IM nailing from August 1986 to December 1991. The purpose of this study is to analyse comparatively the radiological and clinical results between the compression plate fixation and IM nailing in femoral shaft fracture of adult. The obtained results were as follows: 1. Among the 54 patients, the ratio of male and female was 44: 10, and the highest in cidence of age was between 3rd and 4th decades. 2. The main cause of injury was traffic accident in 38 cases. 3. The most common fracture type was B1-â‘¡ in ten cases by AO-ASIF classification. 4. The mean duration of union was 13 weeks in compression plate fixation by the Koostra's criteria and the average 23 weeks in IM nailing by the Bjorens criteria. 5. The clinical result according to Margerl et al, was good in 25 cases (80.6%) with compression plate fixation and good in 20 cases (83.3%) with intramedullary fixation. 6. Complications of compression plate fixation were metal failure in 2 cases and deep wound infection in 1 case, and 1 case of femur neck fracture during operation and 1 case of metal failure in intramedullary fixation.