A simple innovative Chennai handshake technique for reducing anterior dislocation of shoulder joint: a community study of 60 cases

Background: Anterior shoulder dislocation is one of the commonest dislocation of our body. We here by introduce a simple, safe, successful and easily reproducible “Chennai Handshake Technique” to relocate anterior dislocation of shoulder joint.Methods: This method was performed by a single surgeon on sixty cases (51 males, 9 females) of anterior shoulder dislocation with a mean age of 38 years (18 to 58 years) between 2008 to 2013 in tertiary care center. Among sixty patients, there were 12 cases (20%) of fresh dislocation and 48 cases (80%) of recurrent dislocation. It comprises of holding the hand in a classical double shake position and then giving a gentle longitudinal traction (stage I) followed with slow abduction and external rotation of arm (stage II), thus reducing the shoulder dislocation. Vertical oscillation may be a part of stage II in some cases before the external rotation.Results: The index time of patient presenting to the casualty ranged from one hour to 18hrs with a mean of 4.45 hrs. The reduction time ranged  from 1 to 16 min with a mean of  5.6 min. 17 dislocations (28.3%) were reduced  during stage I. 41 dislocations (68.3%) were reduced during stage II. 5 dislocations (12.1%) needed vertical oscillation during stage II. we failed in two cases (3.3%).Conclusions: No need of assistant, no need of anesthesia, no complications makes this technique, a more look back one

A prospective study of surgical site infection of orthopedic implant surgeries

Background: Surgical-site infection accounts for approximately 10% of all hospital-acquired infections, which are estimated to double the cost of care and result in an additional mean of 6.5 days of hospital stay. We did prospective study of surgical site infection of orthopaedic implant surgeries.Methods: The aim of the study is to assess the clinical and microbiological outcome of 125 patients who had open reduction and internal fixation with implants and prosthesis at Southern Railway Hospital from January 2006 to January 2007, and its strength of association with major risk factors using univariate analysis. In our study, Patients were allocated in to three groups as NINS risk index group 0, 1 and 2 with risk factors as duration of surgery >2 hours and ASA class ≥3. Post-operative wound infection was diagnosed based on the criteria of Center of Disease Control and assessed for the period of 6 weeks using National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance Risk Index.Results: There were 87 male and 38 females in the study. From 125 Patients, 13 patients had post-operative superficial surgical site infection and presented within 21 days of operation. The infection rate was 10.4%. Two Patients developed deep infection after 6 weeks of study. All the cases with superficial infection were followed at regular intervals, 11 cases resolved with regular dressing and antibiotics but 2 cases continued to discharge sinus up to 3 months.Conclusions: The study showed that the risk of infection rate increased significantly with ASA score, duration of surgery, obesity and NINS risk index. There was no significant association of infection rate with age, diabetes and smoking.

Perspectives and consensus among international orthopaedic surgeons during initial and mid-lockdown phases of coronavirus disease

With a lot of uncertainty, unclear, and frequently changing management protocols, COVID-19 has significantly impacted the orthopaedic surgical practice during this pandemic crisis. Surgeons around the world needed closed introspection, contemplation, and prospective consensual recommendations for safe surgical practice and prevention of viral contamination. One hundred orthopaedic surgeons from 50 countries were sent a Google online form with a questionnaire explicating protocols for admission, surgeries, discharge, follow-up, relevant information affecting their surgical practices, difficulties faced, and many more important issues that happened during and after the lockdown. Ten surgeons critically construed and interpreted the data to form rationale guidelines and recommendations. Of the total, hand and microsurgery surgeons (52%), trauma surgeons (32%), joint replacement surgeons (20%), and arthroscopy surgeons (14%) actively participated in the survey. Surgeons from national public health care/government college hospitals (44%) and private/semiprivate practitioners (54%) were involved in the study. Countries had lockdown started as early as January 3, 2020 with the implementation of partial or complete lifting of lockdown in few countries while writing this article. Surgeons (58%) did not stop their surgical practice or clinics but preferred only emergency cases during the lockdown. Most of the surgeons (49%) had three-fourths reduction in their total patients turn-up and the remaining cases were managed by conservative (54%) methods. There was a 50 to 75% reduction in the number of surgeries. Surgeons did perform emergency procedures without COVID-19 tests but preferred reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR; 77%) and computed tomography (CT) scan chest (12%) tests for all elective surgical cases. Open fracture and emergency procedures (60%) and distal radius (55%) fractures were the most commonly performed surgeries. Surgeons preferred full personal protection equipment kits (69%) with a respirator (N95/FFP3), but in the case of unavailability, they used surgical masks and normal gowns. Regional/local anesthesia (70%) remained their choice for surgery to prevent the aerosolized risk of contaminations. Essential surgical follow-up with limited persons and visits was encouraged by 70% of the surgeons, whereas teleconsultation and telerehabilitation by 30% of the surgeons. Despite the protective equipment, one-third of the surgeons were afraid of getting infected and 56% feared of infecting their near and dear ones. Orthopaedic surgeons in private practice did face 50 to 75% financial loss and have to furlough 25% staff and 50% paramedical persons. Orthopaedics meetings were cancelled, and virtual meetings have become the preferred mode of sharing the knowledge and experiences avoiding human contacts. Staying at home, reading, and writing manuscripts became more interesting and an interesting lifestyle change is seen among the surgeons. Unanimously and without any doubt all accepted the fact that COVID-19 pandemic has reached an unprecedented level where personal hygiene, hand washing, social distancing, and safe surgical practices are the viable antidotes, and they have all slowly integrated these practices into their lives. Strict adherence to local authority recommendations and guidelines, uniform and standardized norms for admission, inpatient, and discharge, mandatory RT-PCR tests before surgery and in selective cases with CT scan chest, optimizing and regularizing the surgeries, avoiding and delaying nonemergency surgeries and follow-up protocols, use of teleconsultations cautiously, and working in close association with the World Health Organization and national health care systems will provide a conducive and safe working environment for orthopaedic surgeons and their fraternity and also will prevent the resurgence of COVID-19