Minimally invasive surgery for tibial fractures

History: Patient, female. 10 years old, was admitted to the hospital for one hour with swelling, pain, deformity and limitation of movement in the right calf due to a car accident. x-ray showed a fracture of the right upper middle tibia. This is the X-ray film at the time of admission: after admission, three treatment methods were offered to the patient’s parents: 1) closed reduction plaster fixation; 2) closed reduction external fixation brace fixation; 3) closed reduction locking plate internal fixation. The advantages and disadvantages of each method were also explained. The first method has no incision and leaves no scar, but there is a possibility that the fracture will be re-displaced during fixation and needs to be reset again, and even some deformities will remain. The second method is reliable and has only four nail eyes, which has little effect on the appearance, but the external brace is left in place for a long time and affects the wearing of pants, and the nail eyes are prone to infection. In the third method, there is a small incision scar, but the fixation is firm, there is no long-term nail eye care problem, and it does not affect the wearing of clothes and pants, and the functional exercise of the joint can be carried out early, and it has little impact on the function of the joint. The patient’s parents finally chose the third fixation method. The following are the postoperative appearance and radiographs of the patient. (The filaments on the radiographs are the contrastable gauze used to dress the incision.) There are four small incisions, with the lowermost incision being slightly larger. PS: If the traditional incision is used for internal fixation, the minimum length of the incision is as long as the length of the plate, and the periosteum is widely stripped, which affects the healing of the fracture and leaves a large scar, which affects the aesthetics. The minimally invasive method of repositioning and fixation not only achieves the effect of satisfactory repositioning and firm fixation, but also has less trauma, less dryness on the fracture end and does not affect the fracture healing; moreover, the scar is small and has little impact on the appearance, and can be used for early functional exercise of the joint, thus the joint function recovers well; it is the best choice for fracture treatment.