Substantial rise in usage of elastic stable intramedullary nailing in treatment of unstable paediatric femoral shaft fractures by antegrade and retrograde methods: the real impact

Background: Femoral shaft fractures in children require prompt and effective management to ensure proper healing and to minimize long-term disability. 1 The treatment of paediatric femoral shaft fractures has certainly been traditionally agerelated, with decisions influenced by the type of injury, associated injuries, and the location and type of the fracture.Titanium Elastic Nailing (TEN) or Elastic intramedullary nailing (EIN) indeed emerges as a preferred stabilization method in certain types of fractures, particularly length-stable fractures such as transverse and short oblique fractures. 3,4,5Materials and Methods: This is a prospective study conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital from August 2021 to April 2024.For the study purpose, we analysed all admitted consecutive cases of femoral shaft fractures in children from 6 years of age to 16 years.The inclusion criterion were cases of length unstable femoral shaft fracture that were managed with titanium elastic nails and having at least six months of follow up.Results: The clinical results were evaluated using Flynn's criteria of scoring as, Excellent in 30 patients (93.33%), satisfactory in 4 patients (6.67%) and poor in none.Full weight bearing was possible in mean time of 10.1 weeks (range: 7-12 weeks).Conclusion: Closed reduction with EIN is very effective in management of paediatric shaft femur fractures with advantages of lower rate of infection, early union, early mobilization and good range of movements.This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons