Traumatic loss of talus: a rare injury

Traumatic loss of talus during a compound injury of ankle is an unusual injury.

We report a 55 years old woman who sustained an open ankle injury with complete extrusion of talus and loss at the injury site.

A tricortical bone graft was obtained from iliac crest and talar dimensions carved with 5 cm length and 3 cm height given by buttressing fibular graft between them. These grafts are made in the shape of talus by fixing them together with cortical screw and binding them together with Ethibond No. 5. By anterior approach ankle was opened and talar graft was placed in between the raw surfaces of tibia and calcaneus to facilitate ankle arthrodesis.

Patient had solid fusion at the ankle joint after 4 months with no pain on walking.

The definitive treatment of this serious lower extremity injury remains controversial we have attempted this novel way of treatment as the patient was unable to afford talar prosthesis and facilities of allogenic bone grafts were not there.