Which one Affects More to Clinical and Radiological Outcomes in Pediatric Calcaneus Fractures? Is the Severity of Trauma or the Applied Surgical Technique?

Abstract

Objective: The aim of our study is to evaluate the clinical and radiographic results of pediatric calcaneus fractures treated in our hospital in terms of age, treatment techniques and trauma severity and to compare with the literature
 Methods: This is a retrospective study conducted on 22 pediatric patients (28 calcaneus fractures) treated with surgery for calcaneus fractures in our hospital from March 2005 to January 2020. There were seven patients (patients between 3 and 6 years old) in group 1 and 15 patients (between 7 and 16 years old) in group 2. 
 Results: 17 fractures were treated with the CRPP technique, 11 fractures were treated with the ORIF technique. The mean age was 11.4 months (range 3–16). Average follow-up time 81.54 months (range 12-156). There is a significant relationship between age and CRPP(p:0.000), but not with ORIF(p:0.10). The most important result of our study is that there is no significant difference between AOFAS scores with CRPP and ORIF techniques (P: 0.167 and p: 0.20, respectively). The second most important result in our study was that there was a significant relationship between Essex Lopresti and Sanders classification to AOFAS score(p: 0.013 in both.).
 Conclusion : Immature calcaneus fractures are rare, and those without anatomical reduction, as in adults, have poor results. In pediatric calcaneus fractures, fragmentation due to the severity of trauma, cartilage damage, cancellous bone loss and their consequence may cause circulatory disorders between the fracture parts. As a result, post-traumatic arthritis may develop even if anatomical reduction is made. The most important thing that determines the result in pediatric calcaneus fractures is how high energy the fracture occurs rather than the surgical technique to be chosen.