Efficacy comparison of two methods for treatment of tibial plateau fractures

Objective: To compare the efficacy of minimally invasive arthroscopy combined with percutaneous locking plate fixation and pressure reduction and plate fixation for tibial plateau fractures.Methods:Retrospective study of 54 patients with tibial plateau fractures the admitted to our hospital during January 2007 to March 2011 was conducted.Group A(26 cases) underwent invasive arthroscopy combined with percutaneous locking plate fixation while group B(28 cases) underwent pressure reduction and plate fixation.Rate of excellent outcomes,operation time,incision length,hospital stay and bone recovery time as well as incidence of complications of the two groups were compared.Results:According to an average follow up of 15 months ranging from 9 months to 2 years.For group B,the average incision length was 9.3 cm,average hospital stay was 17.1 d,bone recovery time was 16.7 weeks;infection was observed in 1 case,topical skin necrosis in 2 cases,joint stiffness in 1 case,and malunion in one case.For group A,the average incision length was 4.22 cm,average hospital stay was 12.5 d,bone recovery time was 12.2 weeks;no infection,skin necrosis,joint stiffness or malunion occurred.There was no significant difference in the operation time between the two groups(P0.05).According to the Rasmussen system,knee functions of 83.1%and 92.5% cases in group A and group B were evaluated as excellence,showing significant difference between the two groups.Conclusions:Invasive arthroscopy combined with percutaneous locking plate fixation is less minimal,it can help to decrease hospitalization time,union time,and is good for functional recovery of knee joint.