Treatment of floating knee injury in children

The necessity and superiority of the surgical operation on children with floating knee injury and the fracture union and complications were investigated. Twenty-eight children with floating knee injury were subjected to open reduction and internal fixation or external fixator. The patients were followed up for 18 months to 7 years. The curative effectiveness was scored by Karlstrom criteria. The results showed that no nonunion or deformity was found. The affected limb was 1.2 cm to 1.5 cm longer in 2 cases, 0.8 to 1.2 cm shorter in 3 cases than the contralateral. No severe dysfunction of knee joint occurred. The excellent-good rate was 92.8% and the curative rate 71.4% respectively. So for children whose age is older than 5 years, it's a good way to treat the fractures of femur and tibia with open reduction and internal fixation or external fixator. The method can be advantageous for the nursing care, early function recovery, shortening of the hospital stay and avoidance of severe complications.