Surgical and Conservative Treatment of lower Limb Fractures in Patients with Chronic Spinal Cord Injury

Study Design: A 10-year single-center retrospective chart review Objective: To evaluate the differences between conservative and surgical treatment of long bone fractures in individuals with chronic SCI, focusing on wheelchair mobilization, overall hospital days, and complication rates. Setting: Spinal cord injury Department, BG Trauma Center Frankfurt am Main, Germany Methods: The study, conducted between 2014 and 2023, compared conservative and surgical treatment for long bone fractures in individuals with chronic SCI using descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 58 long bone fractures were included, with 31 surgically and 27 conservatively treated. Patient characteristics (age, gender, SCI level, fracture complexity) did not differ between groups (p > 0.05). The median time to first wheelchair mobilization was 14 days for both groups (p = 0.38), and there was no significant difference in hospital stay (p = 0.98). Only one surgically treated case (3.2%) had delayed wound healing, while 9 out of 31 non-surgically treated cases had complications, leading to a significantly higher complication rate for non-surgical treatment (p = 0.002). Conclusion: Non-surgical treatment had a higher complication rate than surgical treatment. Both approaches were equivalent in time to first wheelchair mobilization, and neither showed a significantly shorter hospital stay. Sponsorship: non