Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Orthopaedic Surgery

Distal femoral fractures are serious injuries that are difficult to treat and carry an unpredictable prognosis requiring special preoperative planning and close follow up. Surgical treatment has become the standard treatment after considerable improvement in surgical techniques and the implants used, which avoid the complications of conservative treatment. We conducted a randomized prospective study including 30 patients (11 men and 19 women) with distal femoral fractures who were treated by means of open reduction, internal fixation (ORIF), using a distal femoral locked plate in 15 patients and a condylar buttress plate in 15 patients. Fractures were of types A, B, and C according to the AO/ ASIF classification. Patients were followed up for at least 6 months. The exclusion criteria included Patients who are less than 18 years of age and have sustained compound fractures of distal femur, pathological fractures and old nonunited fractures, patients who had sustained peri-prosthetic fractures, patients who were unfit for surgery and who didn{u2019}t give consent for surgery were excluded from the study. The clinical and functional outcomes were assessed according to the functional evaluation scoring system described by oleurd and colleagues. The functional outcome was excellent in 2 patients versus 13.3%, good in 9 patients versus 60.0%, fair in 3 patients versus 20.0%, and poor in 1 patient versus 6.7% in the first group of patients treated with the distal femoral locked plate and it was excellent in 5 patients versus 33.4%, good in 6 patients versus 40.0%, fair in 2 patients versus 13.3%, and poor in 2 patients versus 13.3% in the other group treated by distal femoral buttress plate

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