Segond fracture with anterior cruciate ligament tear in an adolescent

The authors report a case of acute knee injury in a 14-year-old teenager. The X-ray showed a so-called Segond’s fracture: a small avulsed bone fragment, elliptical in shape, lying immediately below the external tibial plateau, a few millimeters from the lateral tibial cortex. The fracture site was in the portion of the tibial condyle which is linked to the middle third of the lateral capsule by meniscal tibial fibers. Clinical examination under anesthesia and subsequent arthroscopy revealed a total intrasubstance ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) tear close to the proximal insertion. The authors confirm Segond’s report of a possible association of this avulsion fracture with ACL injuries, even in adolescence

Septic physeal separation of proximal femur in a newborn

In newborns physeal separations and septic osteomyelitis or arthritis are unusual, representing a problem in diagnosis and treatment. Therapy needs to be carried out soon in order to prevent anatomical and functional consequences. Association between septic event and physeal separation is rare. We report a 28-day-old female, admitted for elevated temperature, who underwent three nonorthopaedic surgical procedures before, and orthopaedic evaluation 8 days after admission. After an X-ray and an ultrasonography a septic arthritis with consequent hip dislocation was supposed. Only at the time of surgery a separation between the epiphysio-trochanteric nuclei complex and the femoral shaft was observed, with clear hip joint. The interest in this case consists in the difficulty of the differential diagnosis at the first evaluation, the orthopaedic misdiagnosis based on the lack of complete preoperative imaging, and finally the long-term excellent result after a prompt surgical treatment

Myositis ossificans

Definition: Myositis ossificans is a self-limiting benign lesion that can arise in any type of soft tissue most frequently in muscle as a solitary lesion. It consists of a process in which soft tissues are interested by mature lamellar bone formation in association with inflammation mostly caused by traumatic or neurological injury surgery burns or other diseases

Physeal injuries of the distal tibia: long-term results in 376 patients

The aim of this study was to evaluate our treatment of distal tibial physeal injuries retrospectively and explain the relationship between the trauma mechanism, the radiographic injury pattern, the subsequent therapy and the functional outcome, as well as to further deduce and verify prognostic criteria. At the Department of Trauma Surgery, Vienna Medical University, 419 children and adolescent patients with physeal injuries of the distal tibia were treated from 1993 to 2007, of these 376 were included in our study and evaluated retrospectively. Seventy-seven displaced physeal fractures of the distal tibia were reconstructed anatomically by open or closed reduction and produced 95% excellent results. A perfect anatomical reduction, if necessary by open means, should be achieved to prevent a bone bridge with subsequent epiphysiodesis and post-traumatic deformities due to growth inhibition and/or retardation