Traumatic bowing of the forearm bones in roller machine injuries.

Abstract

Slow bending forces created by rollers of rotating machines and acting on forearm bones can result in traumatic bowing even in adults. Four patients having this peculiar injury pattern in industrial accidents have been reported in this paper. Three of these had concomitant fractures of ipsilateral humerus. There were problems in appropriate reduction of the deformity due to the presence of associated overlying soft tissue injury. The literature has also been reviewed for this injury and 13 reports defining the injury profile, problems in realigning forearm bones and their subsequent maintenance have been described. The eventual outcome of such machine injuries has not been good due to persistence of some degrees of bowing and associated restriction of forearm rotation.