A Clinical Study of the Fracture Patterns in Children

Kim, Kwang Hoe; Kim, Sung Joon; Whang, Kuhn Sung; Leem, Jong Sun

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in the epidemiology of children's fractures particullary to the patterns of children's fractures but there is a few available articles about them. We reviewed 398 children under the 15 years of age who were affected by fractures during 4 years and analysed the patterns of children's fractures concerning with the sex, age, seasons of a year, etiology, fracture sites and the types of fractures. The results were as follows : 1. Boys were affected about 2.5 times than girls. Fractures were predominant in between 5 and 9 years of age group. 2. The three highest monthly incidences of the fractures were showed in July, September and October. 3. The major causes of fractures were fall from a height or slipdown, pedestrian traffic accidents and sports injury in decreasing orders. 4. The traffic accidents were occured frequently in children of five to seven year old, and it is occured predominantly in June, July and August(37.8%). 5. The frequent sites of children's fractures were humerus(33.5%), tibia(21.0%), forearm (17.3%) and femur(13.6%). 6. The sports injuries were affected evenly in all age groups except below 3 years old children and the frequent causes were bicycling, exercising on the horizontal bar, Korean wrestling and during football game in decreasing orders.