Greenwood fracture
A green wood fracture (according to the buckling behavior of green, soft wood) is an incomplete fracture , in which the enclosing elastic bone skin (periosteum) is preserved or tearing only at the convex side. It is a bending fracture.
This type of fracture occurs primarily in the long tubular bones (arm and leg bones) of children and adolescents who are still growing, as their bone substance has not yet fully hardened. 25% of forearm shaft fractures in childhood are greenwood fractures.
A part of the bone can yield to the force due to elastic deformation , while another part (usually the one on the outside of the bend, see illustration) breaks due to the greater strain, whereby the bone can split lengthways in the area between the stretched and broken part.
If the periosteum remains intact (subperiosteal fracture), the fractions do not shift against each other, which usually leads to a favorable healing process.
The treatment of a greenwood fracture with axial errors either requires breaking the counter cortex in order to bring the fracture into a tension-free state, or the reliable compression of the convex side is guaranteed. With the latter measure, however, a primarily stable fracture can be converted into an unstable fracture, which results in an indication for surgical therapy.
literature
- Lutz von Laer: Fractures and Dislocations in Growing Age. 5th edition. Thieme, Stuttgart / New York, ISBN 978-3-13-674305-8 , p. 44 ff.
- S1 guideline for forearm shaft fractures in childhood of the German Society for Pediatric Surgery (DGKCH). In: AWMF online (as of 2013)
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b S1 guideline for forearm shaft fractures in childhood of the German Society for Pediatric Surgery (DGKCH). In: AWMF online (as of 2008)
