[Classification of pelvic girdle injuries]

Advances in the operative stabilization of pelvic ring injuries, particularly through the development of special surgical techniques and implants, call for clear indications. A prerequisite for these is a comprehensive classification system. Correct placement of any injury within such a system requires a thorough analysis of the injury, and at the same time comparisons of different treatment concepts and their results are facilitated. Although a number of classification systems have been proposed, none of them has found universal acceptance. Our own attempt at completeness has resulted in a new classification, which is based primarily on the X-ray morphology and secondarily on certain deductions made from it pertaining to the pathomechanics of the injury. To accommodate the extremely wide variety of possibilities we created an open system by dividing the pelvic ring into an anterior and a posterior ring segment. Lesions of both segments can be freely combined. As in the ASIF classification of fractures, lesions of the posterior pelvic ring segment are divided into three types, and each of these again into three groups. Lesions of the anterior ring segment are classified in subgroups. The principle of increasing severity represented by morphological complexity, the difficulty of treatment, and the prognosis is strictly adhered to. The proposal is based on the analysis of 283 pelvic ring injuries.