Treatment preferences in Turkey for open fracture of the tibial diaphysis

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate different treatment methods employed by orthopedic surgeons for open tibial fracture in adults.Methods: Survey of 12 questions regarding treatment of open tibial fracture was conducted with 285orthopedics and traumatology specialists in Turkey in personal interviews and using web-basedtechnique.Results: Of all survey participants, 99.6% responded that tetanus prophylaxis is necessary emergencyprocedure in cases of adult open tibial diaphysis fracture. In addition, 96.5% considered antibioticsadministration necessary, 85.6% also selected irrigation with saline, 55.4% included debridement, and45.3% temporaryŞxation. Only 4 (1.3%) respondents did not use aminoglycoside antibiotics. While 29.8%of those surveyed preferred externalŞxator as a deŞnitive treatment method, 75.8% use intramedullarynail and 13.7% preferred plate method.Conclusion: A wide variation was observed among orthopedics and traumatology specialists in Turkeyregarding treatment of open tibial diaphysis fracture in adults. Data obtained from this study togetherwith the available literature may be useful to further develop therapeutic approaches.© 2017 Turkish Association of Orthopaedics and Traumatology. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This isan open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).