Danger of loss of reduction of supracondylar elbow fracture during radiography.

All too often, the labors of manipulation and anatomical reduction of a supracondylar humeral fracture of the elbow requiring, perhaps, an hour or two, are noticed to be lost once the patients' follow-up radiographs are seen. It is our feeling that the reduction is lost when the forearm is externally rotated for the lateral view of the elbow. To prevent this, we recommend placing the X-ray cassette in the axilla to obtain the true lateral view, thus preventing the unsupervised rotation of the fracture.