Abstract

• PURPOSE: To assess the clinical and radiological results from the treatment of the intraarticular distal radius fracture by using the external fixator and confirm the usefulness of the external fixator from this study. MATERIALS & METHODS: We selected 20 cases of the distal radius fracture patients, who were treated with external fixator, among the patients from March, 1998 to March, 2001 and they could be followed for 1 year. There were 12 males and 8 females with a mean age of 53.4. According to AO classification, there were 2 cases for type A (10%), 2 cases for type B (10%), 5 cases for type C1 (25%), 9 cases for type C2 (45%), and 2 cases for type C3 (10%). In the 16 cases, the external fixator was used alone and in the other 2 cases, the external fixator was used with K-wires fixation. In the last 2 cases, K-wires fixation and autogenous iliac bone graft were combined. RESULTS: In more severe form of distal radius fracture such as complete intraarticular fracture (type C2, C3 of AO classification), the better outcome in clinical and radiologic results was showed when additional K-wires fixation and/or autogenous iliac bone graft were combined rather than using the external fixator only. Particularly, in the cases of type C2, the poorest outcomes of radial length loss 2.7 mm (4.0%), radial inclination loss 1.4 (4.9%), volar tilting loss 2.4 (6.9%) were showed when the external fixator was used alone. The three worst results were from the cases of using external fixator alone in type C2. In the two cases of combination with K-wire fixation, the result of type C2 was excellent and that of type C3 was good. The results of the last two cases (type C2, C3) of combination with K-wire fixation and autogenous iliac bone graft were all excellent. CONCLUSION: In this study, we confirmed that the better result could be achieved when the treatment were performed with combination with K-wire and/or autogenous iliac bone graft rather than using the external fixator alone.
• Key words: Distal radius, Intraarticular comminuted fracture, External fixator

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