[Incidence of open fractures in children (author's transl)]

In nine years 8144 cases of fractures in children were treated in Lorenz Böhler Accident Hospital in Vienna. 5.3% of these were fresh open fractures, more than half of which were of the thumb and fingers, with a large proportion of open fingertip fractures. These were followed by, in order of frequency, forearm fractures, skull fractures and tibia fractures. On average, 63% of the patients were boys, the percentage increasing, however, with age. Pre-school children constituted about half as many of the patients as children of school age. Traffic accidents, mainly those involving pedestrian children, caused three times as many open fractures as closed fractures. The figures given are compared with the number of closed fractures.