Compression-plate fixation in acute diaphyseal fractures of the radius and ulna.

At the Campbell Clinic and City of Memphis Hospital from 1960 to 1970, 244 patients (216 with closed and twenty-eight with open fractures) had 330 acute diaphyseal fractures of the radius and ulna which were treated with ASIF compression plates and followed for from four months to nine years. One hundred and twelve patients had fractures of both bones of the forearm; fifty, single fractures of the ulna; and eighty-two, single fractures of the radius. In all, 193 fractures of the radius and 137 fractures of the ulna were treated by compression plating. Sixty-three patients (25.9 per cent) with severely comminuted fractures also had iliac-bone grafts. The over-all rate of union for the radius was 97.9 per cent and for the ulna, 96.3 per cent. ASIF compression plates, therefore, provided a successful method for obtaining union and restoring optimum function after acute diaphyseal fractures of the forearm.