Intra-medullary, at fracture site introduction of K-wires for metacarpal fracture fixation (in-site technique). A new fixation technique and a case series.

PURPOSE: Metacarpal bone fractures represent one-fifth of upper extremity fractures. The most commonly affected bone was the fifth metacarpal also known as boxer's fracture with a range 9.7-50%. Different techniques have been described for fracture fixation with K-wires being the most described technique. In this paper, we present a new technique utilizing k-wires to reduce and fix metacarpal fractures in an easy less traumatic way aiming to optimize the clinical outcomes in regards of range of motion and stiffness.

METHODOLOGY: Retrospective chart review including all the patients that were managed with the new technique.

RESULTS

24 fractures were fixed with the new technique without violating the MCP joint with different fingers involvement and different presenting deformity. At the end of the splinting time, 80% of the cases had full ROM at the time of splint removal. The remaining 20% had some stiffness that improved with further physiotherapy.

CONCLUSION

This approach is easy to teach, fast with good clinical outcomes. However, a larger sample size study comparing this technique to the existing treatment options is needed.

TYPE OF STUDY: Case Series and literature review, Level IV.