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Study: Angular stable locking system offers little benefit for treating distal tibial fractures
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Recently published data showed treating distal tibial fractures using an angular stable locking treating with intramedullary nailing offered no benefit in terms of patient outcomes compared with traditional locking screws.
During a prospective, multicenter, randomized, patient-blinded trial, researchers randomly assigned 142 patients with distal tibial fracture to treatment using an angular stable locking system with intramedullary (IM) nailing or traditional locking screws with IM nailing.
Patient outcomes were evaluated at 6 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months and 1 year postoperatively. The primary metric of the study was time to full weight-bearing with minimum pain, which was determined via patient diaries; pain at fracture site under load, quality of life, gait analysis, mobility, adverse events and radiographic evaluations were also factors of note.
Time to full weight-bearing with minimum pain was not statistically significant between the angular stable locking system and traditional locking screw cohorts (10.6 and 10.4 weeks, respectively), according to the researchers. Additionally, there was no difference observed between the methods of fixation of clinical or statistical significance in any factors studied at any point during follow-up.
Disclosure: See the study for a full list of all authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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