English

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Incidence of fracture of proximal tibial fractures is increasing regularly due to Road Traffic Accidents. Being one of the major weights bearing joint around it will be paramount importance. Bicondylar tibial plateau fractures usually include damage to the soft tissue, and efforts to fix both the lateral and medial columns with plates can result in tissue loss and infection. In an effort to reduce further damage to the soft tissues, a number of techniques and new implants have been developed. One promising technique involves the use of a single lateral locking plate. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We prospectively followed a case series of 21 patients with bicondylar tibial plateau fractures treated with single lateral locking plate. All the cases were closed. We assessed malreduction, secondary loss of reduction and infection rates in patients treated with single lateral locking plate. RESULTS: We followed all cases until union of fractures. Average time for healing was 12-14 weeks. Healing occurred earlier in cases where MIPO technique was used. We had total of 5 complicated cases which included 1 case of knee joint stiffness with infection, 2 cases of malreduction and 2 cases of post-operative loss of reduction. We had no case of any purely implant related complication like screw loosening, screw breakage plate failure. CONCLUSION: We concluded that single lateral locking plate is a good alternative in the treatment of Bicondylar tibial plateau fractures. Even though it is biomechanically inferior to dual plate fixation it can be considered as good treatment option in case of severe soft tissue involvement. The reduction technique for exact alignment is demanding and we used ligamentotaxis through distractor to achieve near anatomical reduction. The infection rate is low for single lateral locking plate.