Distal radius fractures - how important is it to restore anatomy?

• Autor(a) principal: Beatriz Gonçalves da Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/142061
• topic: Medicina clínica; Clinical medicine

Purpose: Objective measures such as radiological parameters are the most used to evaluate distal radius fracture (DRF) surgical treatment outcome but the question of whether or not these correlate with patient perceived function remains. We retrospectively evaluated pre-operative and follow-up radiological parameters in patients with distal radius fracture, in order to assess if it is necessary to restore anatomy of the wrist by comparing said radiological outcomes of surgical treatment with patient-perceived functional outcome, measured by the DASH score. Furthermore, we aimed to identify variables associated with fracture anatomical reduction and patient perceived functional outcome Methods: Measurements were retrospectively performed on preoperative and follow up radiographs of 77 patients following distal radius fracture and compared with standardized normal value intervals. These included radial height, radial inclination, volar tilt and ulnar variance. The DASH score was used to quantify patient-perceived outcome following DRF surgery. Results: No statistically significant relation was found between the DASH score and achieving normal radiological measurements. It also did not correlate with age, time waiting for surgery, fracture classification or surgery technique. Conclusions: We found that anatomical reduction of surgically treated distal radius fracture measured by radiological outcomes is not necessary to achieve good overall function perceived by the patient. Level of Evidence: Level III, retrospective comparative study