Treating Displaced Distal Forearm Fractures in Children

Distal forearm fractures are among the most common fractures in children. In the past few years the option of percutaneous pinning has gained more attention in the treatment of unstable fractures. However, it remains unclear in which cases a fracture or its reduction should be considered unstable.

In order to evaluate which type of fractures profit most from additional pinning after closed reduction, we performed a retrospective analysis of 225 consecutive cases using the recently published AO pediatric classification of long bone fractures.

After closed reduction, position in the cast was lost in 23% of the cases. The proportion of unstable reductions was much higher in completely displaced fractures. The amount of dislocation was more important than the type of fracture according to the AO classification proposal.

Fully displaced fractures should always be reduced in a setting with pins immediately available. If anatomical reduction cannot be achieved, pinning is advocated. The AO proposal for pediatric long bone fracture classification could be a useful tool to render the diverse studies more comparable. However, the important feature of complete versus subtotal displacement is lacking.