Nail Plate Combination Fixation Versus Lateral Locked Plating for Distal Femur Fractures: A Multicenter Experience

To (1) report on clinical, radiographic, and functional outcomes after nail-plate fixation (NPF) of distal femur fractures and (2) compare outcomes after NPF with a propensity matched cohort of fractures treated with single precontoured lateral locking plates.

Multicenter retrospective cohort study.

Ten Level 1 trauma centers.

Patients with OTA/AO 33A or 33C fractures.

Fixation with (1) retrograde intramedullary nail combined with lateral locking plate (n = 33) or (2) single precontoured lateral locking plate alone (n = 867).

The main outcomes of interest were all-cause unplanned reoperation and presence of varus collapse at final follow-up.

One nail-plate patient underwent unplanned reoperation excluding infection and 2 underwent reoperation for infection at an average of 57 weeks after surgery. No nail-plate patients required unplanned reoperation to promote union and none exhibited varus collapse. More than 90% were ambulatory with no or minimal pain at final follow-up. In comparison, 7 of the 30 matched lateral locked plating patients underwent all-cause unplanned reoperation excluding infection (23% vs. 3%, P = 0.023), and an additional 3 lateral locked plating patients were found to have varus collapse on final radiographs (10% vs. 0%, P = 0.069).

Despite a high proportion of high-energy, open, and comminuted fractures, no NPF patients underwent unplanned reoperation to promote union or demonstrated varus collapse. Propensity score matched analysis revealed significantly lower rates of nonunion for NPF compared with lateral locked plating alone. Larger studies are needed to identify which distal femur fracture patients would most benefit from NPF.

Therapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.