• Injury · Jun 2024

    Are extra locking bolts or fibular plating more important in extreme nailing of distal tibia fractures? A cadaveric biomechanical analysis.

    • Daniel J Cunningham, Joshua E Lawrence, Murali Kovvur, Kristin E Turner, Giovanni Oppizzi, Dali Xu, Li-Qun Zhang, Daniel J Johnson, Peter Mittwede, Aresh Sepehri, Jordan Brand, Robert V O'Toole, and Mark J Gage.
    • R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
    • Injury. 2024 Jun 1; 55 (6): 111540111540.

    ObjectivesIn far-distal extra-articular tibia fracture "extreme" nailing, debate surrounds the relative biomechanical performance of plating the fibula compared with extra distal interlocks. This study aimed to evaluate several constructs for extreme nailing including one interlock (one medial-lateral interlock), one interlock + plate (one medial-lateral interlock with lateral fibula compression plating), and two interlocks (one medial-lateral interlock and one anterior-posterior interlock).MethodsFifteen pairs of fresh cadaver legs were instrumented with a tibial nail to the physeal scar. A 1 cm segment of bone was resected from the distal tibia 3.5 cm from the joint and an oblique osteotomy was made in the distal fibula. We loaded specimens with three different distal fixation constructs (one interlock, one interlock + plate, and two interlocks) through 10,000 cycles form 100N-700 N of axial loading. Load to failure (Newtons), angulation and displacement were also measured.ResultsMean load to failure was 2092 N (one interlock), 1917 N (one interlock + plate), and 2545 N (two interlocks). Linear mixed effects modeling demonstrated that two interlocks had a load to failure 578 N higher than one interlock alone (95 % CI, 74N-1082 N; P = 0.02), but demonstrated no significant difference between one interlock and one interlock + plate. No statistically significant difference in rates or timing of displacement >2 mm or angulation >10° were demonstrated.ConclusionsWhen nailing far-distal extra-articular tibia and fibula fractures, adding a second interlock provides more stability than adding a fibular plate. Distal fibula plating may have minimal biomechanical effect in extreme nailing.Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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