Pott’s fracture - Study of functional outcomes of various surgical treatments

Abstract

Background: Pott’s fractures are very common in ankle injuries because of increased incidence of road traffic accidents and industrial trauma. Anatomical reduction and stable fixation is important for a painless ankle joint. Aim & Objectives: To study functional outcomes of various surgical treatments of pot’s fracture; to achieve stable fixation and early mobilization of the ankle. Materials and Methods: We have evaluated clinical, radiological and functional outcomes of 30 patients treated with different treatment modalities, which include - tension band wiring (TBW), Kirschner (K)-wire, malleolar screw (MS) and cannulated cancellous screws (CCS) for medial malleolus fracture and rush nail, one-third tubular plate, fibular locking plate for lateral malleolus fracture. Results: In this prospective study, 30 cases of Pott’s fractures of ankle were treated by different surgical method. Most common mode of injury was pronation and external rotation injury accounts for 53.34%. 29 cases were treated with open reduction internal fixation and one case associated with plafond fracture treated with external fixator. 15cases of medial malleoli fracture treated with TBW and 14 cases with malleolar / cannulated cancellous screw. Lateral malleoli fractures were treated with rush nail/ fibular plate. We found excellent results in 17 cases, good results in 8 cases, fair results in 4 cases and poor result in 1 case. Conclusion: In this study, after analysing our result, clinical and radiological results has been compared with other published result and found that TBW and fibular plate give excellent results. Level 1 evidence: Prospective study