Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Language

English

Publication Date

8-1-2023

Journal

Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma

DOI

10.1097/BOT.0000000000002602

PMID

36952593

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the infection and nonunion rates for open tibia fracture treatment over the past 4 decades since the introduction of the Gustilo-Anderson (GA) open fracture classification.

Data sources: PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and Cochrane databases were reviewed using the PRISMA checklist for articles between 1977 and September 2018.

Study selection: One hundred sixty-one articles meeting the following inclusion criteria: English language, published between 1977 and 2018, reported infection rates, reported nonunion rates, and fractures classified by the GA open fracture criteria were selected.

Data extraction: All articles were thoroughly evaluated to extract infection and nonunion data for open tibia fractures.

Data synthesis: Due to variability in the data reviewed, statistical evaluation could not be reliably done.

Results: 11,326 open tibia fractures were reported with 17% type I, 25.2% type II, 25.3% type IIIA, and 32.5% type IIIB/C. The average infection rate over 4 decades was 18.3%, with 24.3% superficial, 11.2% deep, and 14.7% pin tract. The infection rate by decade was 14% for 1977-1986, 16.2% for 1987-1996, 20.5% for 1997%-2006%, and 18.1% from 2007 to 2017. The overall nonunion rate was 14.1%. The nonunion rate was 13% for 1977-1986, 17% for 1987-1996, 12.8% for 1997%-2006%, and 12.3% for 2007-2017.

Conclusions: This in-depth summary has demonstrated that the percentage rate for infections and nonunion has remained similar over the past 40 years.

Level of evidence: Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

Keywords

Humans, Tibia, Fractures, Open, Retrospective Studies, Tibial Fractures, Treatment Outcome

Published Open-Access

yes

Download

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.