Upper Extremity Fractures in Children - Prospective Epidemiological Study of Tertiary Medical Institutes -

Abstract

Pur p ose: To investigate the general epidemiologic features of upper extremity fractures in children. Mat e r ia ls and Met h ods: T he records of the 589 in-patient children treated for upper extremity fractures over a 1-year period at 7 different hospitals were collected prospectively and analyzed. The severity of trauma was classified as slight, moderate or severe. T his study examined the incidence of various upper extremity fractures and performed statistical analysis according to the epidemiologic parameters including age, gender and season. Resul ts : The average age of the children was 7.8 years. The average age of boys (8.5 years) was older than girls (6.4 years). The majority of fractures occurred at between 4 and 7 years of age (36%). The male to female ratio was approximately 2 :1. The male predominance increased with age and increased dramatically in the age group, 12-16 years (5.8:1). The left side was injured more frequently (56%), and there was no difference between genders. The occurrence of fractures varied with the seasons with peaks in May (14.1%) and August (12.2%), and it was closely related to the temperature (r=0.778). The most common fractures were the supracondylar fractures of the humerus (32.6%), followed by distal radius fractures (18.2%), lateral condylar fractures (15.8%), radio-ulna shaft fractures (8% ), clavicle fractures (4.2% ), proximal humerus fractures (2.6% ) and humerus shaft fractures (2.4% ). N inety seven percent of fractures were caused by a slight and moderate trauma. Fifty four percent of injured children underwent surgery, and 84% of operations were performed on the fractures around the elbow.