Injury
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Multicenter Study
Hybrid external fixation in the treatment of tibial pilon fractures: A retrospective analysis of 162 fractures.
To determine the efficacy of hybrid external fixation in the treatment of tibial pilon fractures. ⋯ Level IV Case series.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Pragmatic Clinical Trial
Assessing protocol adherence in a clinical trial with ordered treatment regimens: Quantifying the pragmatic, randomized optimal platelet and plasma ratios (PROPPR) trial experience.
Medication dispensing errors are common in clinical trials, and have a significant impact on the quality and validity of a trial. Therefore, the definition, calculation and evaluation of such errors are important for supporting a trial's conclusions. A variety of medication dispensing errors can occur. In this paper, we focus on errors in trials where the intervention includes multiple therapies that must be given in a pre-specified order that varies across treatment arms and varies in duration. ⋯ Overall, PROPPR adherence to blood transfusion order pre-specified in the protocol was high, and the required order of transfusions for the 1:1:2 group was more difficult to achieve. The approaches proposed in this manuscript were useful in evaluating the PROPPR adherence and are potentially useful for other trials where a specific treatment orders with varying durations must be maintained.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Is distal locking with short intramedullary nails necessary in stable pertrochanteric fractures? A prospective, multicentre, randomised study.
We investigated whether a proximal femoral nail can be implanted without a distal locking screw in AO/OTA 31-A1 and 31-A2 pertrochanteric stable femur fractures. A multicentre, randomised study was conducted in six level-two trauma centres in our area (Puglia, Italy). A total of 333 patients received their allocated intervention (162 in the locking group [LG] and 171 in the unlocking group [UG]) and 266 patients were included in the final analysis at 1year. ⋯ There were also no statistically significant differences between groups for mortality and length of hospital stay. Conversely, the UG was associated with shorter operation and fluoroscopy times, shorter surgical incision length, and less blood loss and residual thigh pain. Pertrochanteric stable fractures (31-A1, 31-A2) can be treated successfully with intramedullary nails without distal locking, reducing patient and clinical personnel radiation exposure and sanitary costs (surgery time and screws costs).
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Review Multicenter Study
Minimally-invasive treatment of calcaneal fractures: A review of the literature and our experience.
The optimal treatment of calcaneal fractures (CF) is currently controversial and is still under debate. It is well established that conservative treatment of these fractures is associated with poor results. ⋯ ORIF is the most popular technique for these fractures, but it is associated with high rates of wound complications, hardware failure and infections. Several minimally-invasive techniques have been developed recently for the treatment of CF, with the common aim to be as simple, effective and inexpensive as possible and to reduce surgical times, complications and length of hospital stay.
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Multicenter Study
Delay to surgery does not affect survival following osteoporotic femoral fractures.
Fragility femoral fractures occur in a similar group of patients to hip fractures but they are not routinely managed along standardised guidelines. This study looked specifically at whether delay to surgery has an impact on mortality and morbidity. ⋯ Fragility femoral fractures have equivalent mortality to hip fractures but we found no link between delay to surgery and mortality. We believe it is safe to delay surgery, within reason, whilst their acute and chronic medical problems are optimised. We believe this information will help develop guidelines similar to hip fracture pathways.