Classification of open fractures

  The Gustilo-Anderson classification is most commonly used and is divided into four types, including the degree of bone and soft tissue damage and the degree of wound infection.  Type 1: wounds about 1 cm long, little contamination, viable soft tissue, or minor injury.  Type 2: wounds of 1 cm or more, non-extensive soft tissue damage, and skin without exfoliative flaps or lacerations.  Type 3: Bone is segmentally comminuted and exposed, combined with extensive soft tissue injury or with skin exfoliative lacerations.  Type 4: severe bone and soft tissue injury, combined with vascular and neurological injury, or amputation.  Type I: wounds not exceeding 1 cm with clean edges; Type II: lacerations exceeding 1 cm in length without extensive soft tissue injury or skin avulsion; Type III: lacerations with extensive soft tissue injury including skin or skin flaps, multisegmental fractures, traumatic amputations, and any injury requiring vascular repair.  In 1984, Gustilo found this classification inadequate in clinical practice and divided type III into three “subtypes”; namely, IIIA: fracture with adequate soft tissue coverage, multisegmental or comminuted fracture, IIIB: extensive soft tissue loss, periosteal exfoliation, severe fracture comminution, and extensive infection; and IIIC: including concomitant arterial injury or open joint dislocation. The anderson-Gustilo classification is currently ” one of the most commonly used methods internationally.  Wang Yizheng, a scholar in China, believes that this classification method has too many reference factors and is not consistent with each other, which may cause misleading. He recommended the classification of open fractures according to the mechanism of trauma, and classified open fractures into: (1) open fractures from the inside out; (2) open fractures from the outside in; (3) underlying open fractures according to the cause of open wound formation.