Classification and surgical treatment of scapular neck fractures

Abstract

Objective To explore the classification and surgical treatment of scapular neck frac-tures. Methods A retrospective analysis was done based on the clinical data of 18 patients (including 12 males and 6 females) who accepted operation in Tianjin Hospital from January 2000 to December 2007. The average age of the patients was 41 years (17-62 years). All patients accepted CT examina-tion. According to Hardegger classification, there were 10 patients with anatomical neck fractures and eight with surgical neck fractures. According to Miller system, there were five patients with type II A fractures, six with type II B fractures, six with type II C fractures and one with type II B + IIC fracture. Of all, 15 patients had associated injury. The operative approach included posterolateral approach in nine patients, modified Judet approach in six and anteroposterior conjoint approach in three. Reconstruction plates and lag screws were applied to fix the fractures. Results All patients were followed up consecu-tively with an average period of 25. 5 months (6-70 months). The mean Constant-Murley score was 73 points (35-95 points, meadian 75.5 points) after treatment. There were two patients with malreduction,one with shoulder instability and three with traumatic arthritis postoperatively. Conclusions The indi-cations for early operation include: (1) angular deformity in horizontal or coronal planes of fractures, ie,glenopolar angle (GPA) <20°(2) fracture displacement =10 mm;(3) associated with floating shoul-der injury or superior suspensory shoulder complex injury. The major factors influencing prognosis are as-sociated injuries, quality of fractures reduction, fixation stability, injury of rotator cuff and postoperative rehabilitation. Key words: Scapula; Fractures; Fracture fixation; internal