title: Long term surgical treatment outcome of talar body fracture.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Talar body fractures are rare and have poor treatment outcome. The purpose of this study is to report the long term surgical treatment outcome of closed talar dome fractures.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eight closed talar body fractures, treated by open reduction and internal fixation with small fragment cancellous screws and/or Herbert screws in our level I trauma centre were retrospectively analyzed. Preoperative and postoperative radiographs of the foot (antero-posterior, lateral and oblique views) and ankle (antero-posterior, lateral and mortise views) were obtained. The patients were followed up both radiologically and functionally (foot function index, FFI) after 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months and then annually.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were five crush fractures and three shear fractures (two sagittal shear and one coronal shear), with average follow-up of 5 years. No early complications were noticed in these patients. Late complications included osteoarthrosis of subtalar/ankle joints in six patients and osteonecrosis of talar body in four patients. On functional assessment, mean FFI after 5 years was 104.63 points and worse outcome was noticed in crush injury and coronal shear fractures. Sagittal shear fractures had a good functional and radiological outcome.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Late complications subsequent to surgically treated talar body fractures are inevitable, even though exact reduction and rigid fixation are achieved, thus patients are supposed to be counseled about the adverse outcome. Although crush and coronal shear fractures have poor outcome, sagittal injuries have good prognosis on long term evaluation.
authors: Department of Orthopaedics, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Sector-12, Chandigarh 160012, India.
authors: Ramesh-Kumar
authors: RK
authors: Sen
authors: Sujit-Kumar
authors: SK
authors: Tripathy
authors: Shakthivel-Rr
authors: SR
authors: Manoharan
authors: Vibhu
authors: V
authors: Krishnan
authors: Tajir
authors: T
authors: Tamuk
authors: Vanyambadi
authors: V
authors: Jagadeesh
mesh_terms: D000843:Ankle Joint; D005593:Fracture Fixation, Internal; D050723:Fractures, Bone / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D013628:Talus / Q000293:injuries; D016896:Treatment Outcome