Surgical treatment for chronic lower-leg compartment syndrome in young female athletes

Our experience in treating chronic lower-leg compartment syndrome suggests that women may be more susceptible to this injury than are men, an observation for which there is support in the literature. Furthermore, when we evaluated the 47 young female athletes (age range, 13 years 11 months to 21 years 10 months) from our practice on whom 78 separate surgeries were performed, we found a lower success rate than those generally reported in studies that combine male and female patients. We suspect, therefore, that for reasons as yet unclear, women may also respond less well than men to operative fasciotomy.