Abstract
In polytrauma patients, the temporary stabilization of long bone fractures is critical to the effective sequencing of all of the patient’s injuries. When faced with intrathoracic, abdominal, and other life-threatening pathology, temporarily controlling the movement of long bone fractures with external fixation facilitates the patient’s mobility for other procedures, reduces blood loss, controls pain, and decreases the incidence of fat embolism syndrome. Moreover, temporary external fixation can be done quickly and by non-traumatologists at referring hospitals, thus enabling more-organized and efficient transfer in compliance with U.S. federal patient transfer regulations. Damage control treatment of femur fractures is not indicated for every patient with this injury. Pape et al. [1] have shown that subdivision of patients into injury severity groups and selective application of DCO vs. early fracture treatment can maximize the benefits outlined below.
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© 2012 Springer-Verlag London Limited
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Beck, D., Benson, C.D. (2012). External Fixation of Long Bones. In: Seligson, D., Mauffrey, C., Roberts, C. (eds) External Fixation in Orthopedic Traumatology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2197-8_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-2197-8_10
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