It is well known that tibia, with its poor soft tissue coverage as well as precarious blood supply, is one of the commonly fractured long bone. There has been much controversy concerning the methods its treatment and its increasing complication
rate.
From Jan. 1986 to mar. 1991. Tibia fractures in 418 cases of 405 patients had been treated and analyzed at the Department of Orthopedic surgery of Dae han Hospital.
@ES The Results were obtained as follows.
@EN 1) Out of 418 cases, closed fractures occurred in 326 and open fractures in 92 cases.
2) Out of all 418 cases, conservative treatment was carried out in 128 cases and operative treatment was carried out in 290 cases.
The union period in the conservative treatment cases was 14 weeks on average, and the union period in the operative treatment cases was 19.4 weeks on average.
3) Out of 326 cases of closed fractures. Operative treatment was carried out in 202 cases. In 24 cases, interfragmentary fixation was used and the union period was the shortest, being 13.1 weeks on averge.
In 64 cases of open fractrures, external fixation was used and the union period was 26.4 weeks on average.
4) In 32 cases out of 92 cases of open fractures, soft tissue reconstruction was carried out.
5) Delayed union occurred in 10.7% and nonunion occurred in 3.6% of the cases.
The delayed union and nonunion was higher in cases of external fixation than in cases of internal fixation.
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