This is my first Editor’s Choice for OrthoBuzz as new Editor-in-Chief of JBJS. I am following the example of my esteemed predecessor, Vern Tolo, who recently issued an Editor’s Choice warning about our failure to improve the management of patients with fragility fractures in terms of appropriate diagnosis and treatment of underlying osteoporosis. That is a failure of under-treatment. I want to focus on a potential issue of overtreatment.
In the July 2, 2014 JBJS, Leroux et al. describe the risk factors for repeat surgery after ORIF of midshaft clavicle fractures. The study analyzed 1,350 patients treated with surgery between 2002 and 2010 in Ontario. It is important to note that this analysis includes years after 2007, when JBJS published the seminalmulticenter RCT on this topic by the Canadian Orthopaedic Trauma Society (COTS). The essence of that study was that ORIF with plate fixation results in a lower rate of nonunion and better functional outcomes predominantly in patients who have completely displaced fractures with about 2 cm of shortening or displacement.
Since that publication, we have seen an explosion in the operative treatment of midshaft clavicle fractures in North America. However, all too often the inclusion criteria derived from the seminal RCT are not referenced in individual patient decision making, and the presence of a clavicle fracture–regardless of degree of displacement–becomes an indication for surgical management.
