Post Operative Complications of Surgical Treatment for Acetabular Fractures, A Case Series with Short Term Results

Abstract

ABSTRACT:BACKGROUND:Acetabular fracture is a complex injury, it mostly results from a high-energy mechanism and mostly in young patients. whenever indicated surgical treatment is possible thought several surgical approaches with different fixation constructs. Many authors proved the important relation between the occurrence of postsurgical complications and the presence of associated hip dislocation, whereas the fracture type and operative approach did not prove to be significant in the occurrence of complications after surgery.Recent studies focused on decreasing the rate of complications that follows the operative management.OBJECTIVE:To evaluate the complications of surgical treatment of isolated closed acetabular fractures including surgical site infection, iatrogenic nerve injury, heterotrophic ossification (HO), and femoral head necrosis (AVN) and to assess any relationship of these complications with fracture type, operative approach, and age of patients.PATIENTS AND METHOD:Thirty-one operatively managed acetabular fracture, 24 males and 7 females with a mean age of 37.2 years were studied over the period from October 2013 to June 2016 in Medical city complex / Baghdad with a minimum follow up of 6 months. Infection, AVN of femoral head, nerve injury and heterotrophic ossification were studied.RESULT:Significant relation between postsurgical complications and presence of hip dislocation at presentation was noticed while the fracture type and operative approach were insignificantly related to the complications.