Self-designed femoral neck guide pin locator for femoral neck fractures.

Abstract

Closed reduction and fixation with 3 cannulated screws is a widely accepted surgery for the treatment of femoral neck fractures. However, how to obtain optimal screw placement remains unclear. In the current study, the authors designed a guide pin positioning system for femoral neck fracture cannulated screw fixation and examined its application value by comparing it with freehand guide needle positioning and with general guide pin locator positioning provided by equipment manufacturers. The screw reset rate, screw parallelism, triangle area formed by the link line of the entry point of 3 guide pins, and maximum vertical load bearing of the femoral neck after internal fixation were recorded. As expected, the triangle area was largest in the self-designed positioning group, followed by the general positioning group and the freehand positioning group. The difference among the 3 groups was statistically significant (P<.05). Anteroposterior and lateral radiographs showed that the screws were more parallel in the self-designed positioning group and general positioning group compared with the freehand positioning group (P<.05). The screw reset rate in the self-designed positioning group was significantly lower than that in the general positioning group and the freehand positioning group (P<.05). Maximum bearing load among the 3 groups was equivalent, showing no statistically significant difference (P>.05). The authors’ self-designed guide pin positioning system has the potential to accurately insert cannulated screws in femoral neck fractures and may reduce bone loss and unnecessary radiation.