Comparative study in patients with external rotation ankle injuries

Abstract

Introduction: Lateral malleoli fractures are one of the most commonly encountered injuries. Conventionally lateral fibula plating was done for fibula fracture but several studies have come up showing advantages of posterior antiglide plating for fibula. In this study, we aim at comparing the functional and radiological outcome in patients treated with conventional lateral fibula plating and posterior antiglide plating.Materials and methods: 30 patients with external rotation lateral malleoli fractures were studied prospectively. Lauge-hansen’s classification was used to classify these injuries. Patients were randomly divided into 2 groups. Group 1 was operated by lateral fibula plating and Group 2 by posterior antiglide plating. Comparison of the outcome between the 2 groups was done using Weber’s criteria.Result: The most common age group was 40-59 years with male dominance. Majority were supination-external rotation injuries. Both groups showed 33% excellent, 60% good and 7% poor outcomes. Lateral plating group exhibited few technical disadvantages like more hardware use, implant prominence and patient discomfort. But both groups were comparable in terms of surgical time, complications and final functional and radiological outcome.Conclusion: The outcome of the surgical management of a displaced lateral malleolus fracture is comparable with both techniques. Although few studies have reported some advantages using the antiglide technique, our data do not support one technique over the other.