[Surgical treatment of forearm fractures]

A retrospective investigation was undertaken on 62 patients with 103 fractures. Of these, 61 fractures were treated with Rush pin, ten with plate osteosynthesis and three with cerclage. Fifty-three patients were followed up. This revealed that 50% of the patients achieved excellent or satisfactory results. 39% did not have satisfactory results while six patients (9.7%) developed pseudoarthrosis and thus unacceptable results. The healing percentage was 92.3 and the infection rate 3.1. These results are considerably better than previously reported series of forearm fractures treated with medullary osteosynthesis and they are comparable with the results of plate osteosynthesis. Rush pin osteosynthesis appears to be as good as plate osteosynthesis but this should be illustrated by means of a controlled investigation.