Surgical Treatment of the Trochanteric Fracture of the Femur

Kim, Bong Keun; Kong, Byung Han; Choi, Choong Sik; Lee, Bang Sub

Abstract

The authors have treated 30 cases of trochanteric fracture of the femur from June 1987, to July 1988 at Dong Suwon General Hospital. The 30 cases included, 8 Condylocephalic Kuentscher nailing, 9 Ender nailing, 7 Multiple pinning, 5 Antegrade Kuentscher nailing and 1 Row plating. 1. The shape of condylocephalic Kuentscher nail should be designed differently, contoured circular arc in anteroposterior and angled in lateral plane. In the anteroposterior plane : The length of the radius of the arc is measured by following way. 1) Design the shape of the nail on the X-ray film of the normal femur which was taken in full internal rotation of the leg. 2) Make three points in the femoral film. One is A, midcentral point of the femoral canal of the isthmus. Point B is center of upper lateral quadrant of the femoral head. Point C is apart from medial cortex 5-7mm at the level of entry portal of the nail. 3) Make point D: Draw the perpendicular lines from the right middle of the AB and AC. These lines meet at the point D. AD is radius of the arc of nail. Draw an arc measuring by the length of AD and mold the nail following the arc. In the lsteral plane ; The nail is bent into three or four segments and the length of the longest segment should not be exceeded the permissible length of straight nail, the latter is distance from entry portal of the nail to anterior cortex of the femur where the tip of the inserted nail is impinged, about 15cm. 2. Two different types of the Ender nailings are used depend on the type of the fracture. In intertrochanteric fracture, the trochanter is remained in the distal fragment and acts as the crane post to fix the proximal fragment(interfragmental compression screw fixation) by horizontal screw inserted through the lateral cortex of the distal fragment into medial cortex of the proximal fragment and fixed with another screw inserted into the distal fragment by tension band wiring. In transtrochanteric frscture, the proximal fragment is fixed by two different kinds of the nails, prior to the nailing medial displacement of the distal fragment is not reduced. The first nail is driven along the medial wall of the medullary canal of the distal fragment, the tip of the nail comes out of the fracture site and impinges to the inferomedeial aspect of the head along the out side of the neck. The nail is inserted into the head after correction of nail direction. The second and third nails are inserted through the medullary canal of the fragments. The proximal fragment is fixed between two nail groups. 3. Antegrade Kuentscher nailing is used for undisplaced trochanteric fracture with segmental fracture or comminuted, segmental subtrochanteric fracture. The open reduction and fixation is preferable in comminuted segmental subtrochanteric fracture for its accurate reduction. The authors msde additional several holes, transverse, sagittal (at the dorsum of the nail) oblique holes around the nail, so the interlocking screw can be easily inserted to the nail when the insertion of the screw through the transverse holes are difficult. 4. It's extremely important to study the fracture carefully when the surgeon plans to use the multiple pinning for trochanteric fracture. The fracture configuration has to be determined in regard to expect stability after local pinning especially in lateral plane. The fracture is fixed by horizontal pin, low angle pin, curved buttress pin(or screw) solidly, not parallel as in neck fracture. The curved buttress rush pin should be inserted as acting as the anteromedial or posteromedial buttress.