Atiquz Zaman, Arif Hasan Khan, Amer Aziz.
Clinical outcome of close intramedullary interlocking nail infractured tibia.
J Pak Orthop Assoc Jan ;20(1):26-37.

Objective:To describe the relative percentage of cases that undergo union, malunion, delayed union or non-union of tibial fractures after close reamed intramedullary interlocking nail in recent (less than 25 days after fracture) post-traumatic fracture and to describe mean, median, mode of days taken for union by fractured tibia after fixation by close reamed intramedullary interlocking nail. Study Design: Descriptive study. Place and Duration of Study: Orthopaedic and Truamatology Department, Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital & Ittefaq (Trust) Hospital Lahore, from 1st Auust 2002 to 31st December 2003. Patients and Methods: During the study period, 105 patients with fracture shaft of tibia, were treated with close reamed intramedullary interlocking nail, carried out on closed and up to Grade II open recent (less than 25 days) tibial shaft fracture. Only 58 fulfilled our inclusion criteria. Out of 58, five patients did not turn up after removal of stitches and were, therefore, dropped out of the study. Finally, only 53 patients were included in the study, 44 were males and 9 were females. Results: In our study, union occurred in 92.5% of cases in 18.36% dynamization was needed to achieve union. The mean time for union was 85 days. There were 3 (6%) cases of delayed union (i.e. union not occurred after 6 months) and only 2% cases of non-union (labelled after 9 months). Conclusion: Our results indicate that close reamed intramedullary interlocking nail was a satisfactory treatment for rapid union of tibial shaft fractures. We believe that intramedullary nailing of closed and grade I, II open fractures is a safe technique; it combines a high rate of union with a low complication rate and early return of function.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com