Early Weight-Bearing Treatment of Open Fractures of the Tibia

Abstract

Sixty-three open shaft fractures of the adult tibia were treated with early weight-bearing in a toe-to-groin, straight knee plaster cast at Fitzsimons General Hospital over a seventeen-month period. This series represents all but three of the patients with this type of fracture treated at our hospital during this period. All fractures united with an average healing time of nineteen weeks, and all patients regained a functional lower extremity with good knee motion. Only four fracture sites were still draining when the patients were last seen, and there were no amputations.