title: Perkins traction for adult femoral shaft fractures: a report on 53 patients in Sierra Leone.
abstract: A retrospective study of 53 consecutive adult patients with 54 femoral shaft fractures treated with Perkins traction over a 25-month period was carried out. Mean length of stay was 52.1 days (range 25-108), and mean duration of traction was 45.0 days (range 23-66). At a mean follow-up of 4.6 months (range 3-9), 50 (92.6%) had healed and 5 (9.3%) had a malunion. There were 4 (7.4%) non-unions, 3 (5.5%) had shortening of more than 2.5 cm and 2 (3.7%) had a re-fracture. The rate of pin tract infection was very high at 42.6% (23 patients).
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Berkeley University, El Granada, CA 94018-1983, USA. froggydoc@comcast.net
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gosselin
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lavaly
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D006620:Hip Fractures / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012807:Sierra Leone; D014143:Traction / Q000379:methods*