Femoral neck system vs conventional fixation: Long-term outcomes from a single-center study

Area of Science:

• Orthopedic surgery
• Trauma surgery
• Biomedical engineering

Background:

• Femoral neck fractures are common in the elderly.
• Minimally invasive fixation devices like the Femoral Neck System (FNS) aim to improve outcomes.
• Comparative long-term data between FNS and conventional methods are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the long-term performance of the FNS with conventional fixation methods for femoral neck fractures.
• To evaluate operative time, bleeding, failure rates, and functional outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Single-center retrospective study of 143 patients (Jan 2020-Oct 2022).
• Patients were grouped by implant: FNS, triple cannulated screws, or dynamic hip screw (DHS).
• Outcomes included operative time, bleeding, fixation failure, AVN, reoperation, mortality, and autonomy (Parker score). Multivariable logistic regression was used.

Main Results:

• Operative time was shortest with FNS and longest with DHS.
• No significant differences in peri-operative bleeding, fixation failure, infection, or mortality between groups.
• Each additional year of age increased the risk of postoperative loss of autonomy by 5.1%.

Conclusions:

• The FNS demonstrates comparable outcomes to conventional fixation for femoral neck fractures.
• FNS offers a shorter operative time than DHS.
• Patient age is the most significant predictor of functional outcome following surgery for femoral neck fractures.