Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Creating Rigidly Stabilized Fractures for Assessing Intramembranous Ossification, Distraction Osteogenesis, or Healing of Critical Sized Defects
Published on: April 11, 2012
Fixation of distal radius fractures using a fragment-specific system
Stephen B Schnall1, Bill J Kim, Antonio Abramo
1Department of Clinical Orthopaedics and Surgery, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90033, USA. schnall@usc.edu
Unlabelled:
Operative treatment for distal radius fractures continues to evolve, but small-fragment fixation has some advantages compared with previous methods. We assessed two groups of patients. Group 1 was an initial series of patients treated with small-fragment fixation at a large institution in the United States, and Group 2 was a review of patients treated in Lund, Sweden. The first group was evaluated for return to routine activity. Return to work or routine daily activity averaged 6 weeks (range, 3-16 weeks). The second group was evaluated for early grip strength and range of motion compared with the uninjured extremity. The grip strength at final followup averaged 67% compared with the uninjured extremity. Wrist flexion averaged 46 degrees, extension averaged 57 degrees, pronation averaged 80 degrees, and supination averaged 73 degrees.
Level Of Evidence:
Therapeutic study, level IV.

