A prospective study on clinical outcome of humerus shaft fracture and nonunion treated with antero medial plating

Abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Humeral shaft fractures have an incidence of 13 per 100000 per year and account for 3% of total fractures. The following study is carried out with intention for determining and verifying facts around plate osteosynthesis on anteromedial surface of humerus through anterior approach.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> This is a prospective study of 38 patients presenting with humerus shaft fracture and non-union to the Balaji Institute of Surgery Research and Rehabilitation for the Disabled (BIRRD) from April 2015 to March 2016.<strong> </strong>Inclusion criteria<strong> </strong>were age>18 years, acute humerus shaft fractures and nonunion of humerus shaft. Exclusion criteria were undisplaced fractures, fractures associated with neurovascular injury, compound and pathological fractures, infected non unions. The functional outcome was graded based on the QuickDASH score. Fisher’s exact test was used to find the association between categorical data.<strong></strong></p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Clinical union was noted in 87% of the patients and radiological union in 74% at the end of three months. The average time period required to achieve union was 13.57 weeks. Based on Quick DASH score, 66% of them had excellent outcome, 24% had good outcome, 10% had fair outcome, and none had poor outcome.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> It may be concluded that, anteromedial plating through anterior approach for the treatment of humerus shaft fractures and non union leads to a satisfactory functional outcome in most of the patients. Most of the fractures were united by 3 months with good range of motion of shoulder and elbow.</p>