[Criteria for the treatment of femoral shaft fractures in childhood. Do post-traumatic rotatory defects require treatment?].

Overgrowth and rotational deformity of the injured leg are sequelae of femoral shaft fractures in children. It is still questioned whether the posttraumatic rotational deformity is corrected spontaneously and whether this leads to arthrosis. An individual follow up of 25 children out of 94 with a malrotation after conservatively treated femoral shaft fracture - two to three times up to 4 years after the accident - showed a spontaneous correction of malrotation in 15 (60%). No prearthrotic sign could be found by physical and roentgenographical examination. In accordance with recent publications these results demonstrate again that in children up to the age often operative treatment of isolated femoral shaft fracture is not indicated, as posttraumatic malrotation is corrected at least to almost physiological values and no extensive study exist so far, which give evidence that malrotation after femoral fracture in children leads to arthrosis.